Business

|Documentation Usability Techniques |
|Chauncey E. Wilson |
|Chaunsee@aol.com|
|October 30, 1999 |
|Method |Focus |Notes |
| || |
|Read and Locate Test |General sense of ease of navigation and |Need a fairly large sample and must spend time on |
| |organization of information |representative questions. |
|| | |
|Laboratory Testing |Use to verify unique features of all types |Finding participants is the biggest issue. Can be |
| |of Online Help. If performance isn’t an |used for performance testing (how fast, how many|
| |issue, participants are generally ask to |errors) |
| |“think aloud” | |
| | ||
|Summary Test |Use to see if users grasp key concepts |Users read a section of documentation and reflect |
| |(e.g., security) |back what they think it means. Scoring may not be |
| ||easy. |
| | | |
|Usability Edit |Detailed edit of instructions. User is |Useful for procedural help to see if language is |
||asked to read through text and mark up |clear, anything is missing, terminology is consistent|
| |things that are hard to understand, wordy, | |
| |inconsistent, etc. ||
| | | |
|User Interface Inspections |Formal inspection of document with focus on|Catches many details. Should have writers from |
| |usability, readability, and consistency|different groups in on the inspection to improve |
| |issues. A common UI design technique. |consistency. Requires some minimal training. Should |
| | |not be the only method used. |
| |...