How do writers view usability information? A case study of a developing documentation writer

As Dieli (1989) notes, writers sometimes have trouble focusing their concerns into questions that usability groups can test. As teachers of future documentation writers, we have observed that writers also have trouble turning the results of those usability tests into strategies for document revision. Our first investigation into these issues—see Sullivan & Porter (1990)—described a class of fifteen professional writing students employing usability information to write computer documentation. That study indicated that the writer's use of information is guided by that writer's rhetorical orientation, particularly his/her view of the audience/user. Though all the writers in the study conducted the same type of usability test (modeled after Atlas' “user edit”—see Atlas, 1981), they interpreted their test results in different ways.

This investigation continues the Sullivan & Porter (1990) study using a longitudinal case study of one professional writer, called “Max.” This follow-up study aims to probe how the writer's rhetorical orientation guides that writer's interpretation of usability test results.

We take a slightly uncommon view of usability. We have opted to focus on the writer's view of users' actions—both what is noticed and how it is interpreted. Typically, usability studies have examined the interaction between texts/systems and readers/users (see McDonald & Schvaneveldt, 1988; Ramey, 1988; Rubens & Rubens, 1988), subordinating the important variable of how the writer interprets and uses results. Although both Sullivan (March, 1985) and Schriver (1987) suggest that writers can be trained to successfully use user information in revising documents they do not author, usability studies still have not examined how writers view the findings from usability studies run on their own work.

Our study examines how, and to what degree, one writer's rhetorical orientation filters results from usability tests.