reading notes

Notes on Doheny-Farina [SDF]: "Effective Documentation: What we have learned from research".

Preliminary questions:

How will this book compare with "The Wired Neighborhood" and other, more theoretical books by SDF?

This book is meant to make lots of empirical or otherwise submerged research avail. to a wider audience of people interested in tech comm. Will any of the authors chose a more experimental style in reporting their findings?

Will I be shocked by the coolness of the book?

What would this book suggest about the "life" of the IPCC report on climate change? [released this morning].

The easy questions:

When was it published? 1988

What group of scholars is the author addressing?

SDF is addressing a wide range of tech comm professionals:
tech writers
document designers
tech writing dept managers
tech comm researchers [me]
teachers and students in tech comm

What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?

It's an anthology of -- and this is important -- prescriptive research. SDF hedges this: some of the research is localized and some attempts to uncover fundamental principles; some is slightly positivistic and some is critical about the generalizability of specific studies. The methods are elcectic and attitudes toward the findings vary, but this is a collection of prescriptive studies.

The hard questions:

What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?

The book arose out of a conflict between 1) tech comm researchers and 2) pracititioners and teachers at the 34th intl tech comm conference [may 1997]. Group #2 called for more research and group #1 kept saying that the research is out there, but inaccessible. This conflict mirrored a larger conversation in the field.

SDF offers Effective Documentation as a way to fill the gap with research that can reach a wide range of tech comm people. Some of the research is new.

What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?

SDF focuses on issues that are relevant to a wide range of tc professionals: 1) text and computer screen issues, 2) the contexts of usability and 3) research methods and epistemological / critical stuff.

Focus topics: user learning and performance, format and graphic design, management of documentation processes, analysis of research methods in tc.

These topics are of current general interest in TC.

What is the epistemological background?

Huh. What is an epistemological background?

Vee-eery breifly, the form of technical comm today reflects the heritage of 17th-century publishers and audiences. While "Adventurous scribes" conducted layout experiments in the M.Ages, this stuff was standardized in the century after the invention of the printing press: at first, the pp wanted to preserve aesthetic features for the printed book, but then they started to experiment with features that enhance readability.

OK. So, at about the same time, The Royal Society rejected the exceesses what we call "Ciceronean" rhetoric for a plain, ytilitarian style that makes language safe for natural philosophy. [see Sprat, a history of the royal society].

So that's a brief history of making texts useful. We're still interested in how to do that. Note: While reading-to-learn has been popular since the 17th century, reading-to-do became more popular circa WW II. Current views on how to make texts useful vary widely. This book presents current information for a wide audience of tc professionals.

What is the argument?

SDF takes a stasis approach, presenting point and counterpoint on the following issues:

[research into user learning and performance]
elaboration vs truncation
computer documentation : "worked out" or active/experimental
hardcopy-to-online transition in computer d.

[research into format and graphic design]
graphics in hard copy and online: what works?

[research into management and documentation processes]
outmoded documentation cycles vs. new directions

[research methods: relative merits]

What evidence does the author bring?
The articles [copy chapter descriptions]

What perspective does the author take?

SDF reports prescriptive research.

What perspective is under-represented or missing?

I would describe prescriptive research as ... driven or skewed, but I'll have to read chapter by chapter to see what's missing.

Notes:

(!) The ITCC discussion section was lead by WSU's John Beard (WSU School of business).

Fabulous overview of empirical research [Morgan, ch. 2].

(Har!) An expert user in Hunt and Vasilladis' study of error messages preferred 1 error message: ERROR.

HV deviates from the 1st definition of tech comm -- no matter how brilliant the introduction is, the "perverse reader" will open your book in the middle. NOTE: HV prefer "elaborated natural language" for error messages.

Bradford notes that technical books -- the "technology of text"-- have looked the same for 800 years, and that these traditions aren't applicable to the emerging "technology of the display screen".

(!) Krull challenges the assumption that GUI is the new jesus. HE thinks that icons are a transitional thing (they're slippery and inextensible) and that direct manipulation interfaces will focus more on point and do, windows and dynamic menus.

(!) Baker on the traditional context of product documentation: 1) The user is inexperienced. 2) The product is unique. 3) The user is concerned about damaging the product and 4) The user perceives the product as dangerous. Note: Hacks are as far away from this traditional context as possible! Cite this at the QE.

(Hey!) What can this book tell tech comm instructors about syllabus design?