I will conduct testing by asking participants to first read through the pamphlets.  Next they will be provided with a list of basic content-based questions to answer–without using the pamphlets as a reference.  After completing these questions, participants will be asked to find several more obscure pieces of information using the pamphlets.  Both tasks will be carefully observed and the amount of time it takes for participants to find each piece of information will be recorded.  Through these tasks I hope to assess how easy the pamphlets are to understand and how strong of an “impression” the information contained therein has upon readers as well as determine how well the pamphlets work as references and how intuitive their organizations schemes are.

Once testing is completed, participants will be presented with a series of questions regarding the pamphlets themselves.  I have not yet decided upon specific questions to ask, but I plan to focus on comprehensibility, accessibility (in terms of organization and tone), aesthetics, and length.

I think a common perception among many companies is that documentation, though necessary, is relatively unimportant because nobody will read it anyway; and, even being a technical communicator myself, I am sympathetic to this view.  Because documentation is routinely very bad and nearly unusable, I generally ignore it.  As a natural consequence of this circumstance, it seems that many successful companies–as evidenced by our perusal of the iPod documentation in class–are focusing on making products intuitive enough that the documentation isn’t needed.  If this trend continues, many technical communicators will be increasingly forced to prove their worth in other ways and I think that emphasizing their function as usability testing specialists and interface experts are particularly good examples of how technical communicators can accomplish this.

On the latter issue, piracy, I think the proliferation of insider shop manuals on the Internet is merely another example of the information age moving too fast for businesses and regulators to keep up.  For better or worse–the Internet cannot be policed.  As a result many industries will have to adapt just as the music industry has to the MP3/Napster fiasco.  While many may decry that whole situation as simply an instance of ”people stealing because they can get away with it,” I would make both the same argument I’ve alluded to in the previous paragraph, that access to information holds sellers accountable for their products, and the additional one that free access to information on the Web helps mitigate the advantage large companies have through advertising. 

Before I began downloading music using Kazaa (a Napster-like music sharing program) several years ago, I bought about one or two CDs a year.  However, after being exposed to a wide variety of music available on Kazaa, I began to buy over a dozen CDs each year; and all from artists I probably would never have heard of otherwise.  While these programs have now been regulated–at least well enough that I no longer use them–through their use, I learned to always sample music before I buy it by downloading free promotional MP3s or listening to 30-second clips.  Using this buying method, I am much less likely to purchase an album I dislike and, as a result, feel more comfortable spending money on music because I am confident it won’t be wasted.  While I may not be very representative of the American consumer–I do all my shopping (save for groceries and cars) online or at thrift stores–but I still think the accessibility of online consumer information has and will play an important role in rewarding (and thereby multiplying) companies that spend less on advertising and more on making quality products.

Small world, big challenges

“Globalization is an irreversible process, not an option,” states UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (Sundara).  I think it would be difficult for anyone who has been paying attention to the rapid advancement in telecommunications technologies and the explosive expansion of Internet usage and innovation over the past decade to contest this assertion.  The world is a much smaller place than it was ten years and it is still shrinking.

As technical communicators, we should be aware of the implications this unavoidable trend has for our occupation.  For instance, consider the economic importance of this statistic: “Of approximately 215 million current global Internet users, 57.4 percent designate English as their primary language with the U.S. accounting for 66 percent of e-revenues. In 2003, this share decreased to 39 percent as other regions expanded their Internet activities, including buying online” (Cyr and Trevor-Smith 2).  In effect, the majority of Web consumers are not native speakers of English.  Thus far, the technical communication industry has responded to trends such as these using two different approaches: Internationalization (or globalization) and localization.

Internationalization

Internationalization essentially consists of designing single documents for maximum usability across a wide spectrum of audiences.  David Debry explains: “Internationalization is like creating a round-toed shoe that fits people with all types of feet. It is not as comfortable as a perfectly fitted shoe and doesn’t fit snugly, but can be worn by many people” (qtd. in Graves 9). 

Technical communicators achieve this objective primarily by attempting to design culturally and, as far as it is possible while writing in the English language, linguistically neutral documents.  These documents are typically written in English prose that is simple and conventional enough to be either easily understood by non-native speakers or easily translated by professional translators or translating machines.  Some common strategies technical communicators employ to this end are:

• Avoid cultural references (i. e. 4^th of July).
• Don’t use slang or colloquialisms (i.e. “in the bag”).
• Be meticulous about grammar, particularly punctuation, correctness.
• Consider translation spatial issues (i.e. Spanish verbiage takes up roughly 25% more space on a page than English). 
• Use Simplified English (SE).

(Graves 11, Rimalower 21-22)

Localization

Though the practice has received relatively little attention in real-world business practices compared with internationalization—undoubtedly because it is very expensive and time-consuming—localization represents an interesting alternative: designing multiple versions of a single document—each adapted to a specific audience (Hoft 147).  Using this approach, technical communicators attempt to match the linguistic, rhetorical, cultural, and legal (i.e. copyright issues) expectations of their international audience (Thakur 7-8).

Sun supports this practice in her assertion that if we use an iceberg as a metaphor “to look at local culture, we will find that translation, punctuation, and aesthetic appeal, are the tip of the iceberg; the huge body of the iceberg is the culture itself (e.g. common knowledge and values shared within a culture)” (Sun).  Thus, only by taking the time to acquire a genuine understanding of a given culture can a technical communicator be confident that the full informative, persuasive, or instructional effect of her document will translate to that cultural audience.  Graves offers several basic—though not necessarily easy—strategies for obtaining cultural expertise:

• Find out as much as possible about your specific audience through extensive audience analysis.
• Spend time in the target country.  The longer and less “touristy” the trip, the better.
• Pursue relationships with peers from other cultures to gain a better appreciation for global diversity.
• Learn another language, even if this language is not that of your target audience.  Multi-lingual speakers generally possess a better understanding of the potential differences between languages.
• Test the veracity of your analyses with extensive usability testing using members of the target cultural audience as participants.

(12-13).

Clearly this practice will take a substantial investment of time, resources, or both; however, if current economic and technological trends continue—and I’ve yet to hear an argument, even an unconvincing one, that they won’t—the potential return on your investment may be well worth the effort.

Works Cited

Cyr, Dianne and Haizley Trevor-Smith. “Localization of Web Design: An empirical comparison of German, Japanese, and U.S. Website characteristics.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. No. 55(13): 1-11. 9 April 2009. <http://www.diannecyr.com/cyr2004_weblocalization.pdf>.

Graves, R. “Global Technical Communication.” 2003. 9 April 2009. <http://web.njit.edu/~nrs8/The_tide_of_globalization.pdf>.

Guttman, Edward and Aaron Marcus. “Globalization of user-interface design for the Web.” 11 June 1999. 9 April 2009. <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/>.

Hoft, Nancy. “Global Issues, Local Concerns.” Technical Communication—Washington. (1999): 145-148. 9 April 2009. <http://core.ecu.edu/engl/tpc/tekkom/ftp/hoft.pdf>.

Rimalower, George. “Tips for Writing a Document Destined for Translation.” Intercom. 56:4 (April 2009): 4-8.

“Simplified English.” Userlab Inc. 9 April 2009. <http://www.userlab.com/Downloads/SE.pdf>.

Sun, Huatong. “Why Cultural Contexts are Missing: A rhetorical critique of localization practices.” Annual Conference—Society for Technical Communication. (2002). 9 April 2009. < http://www.stc.org/confproceed/2002/PDFs/STC49-00090.pdf>.

Sundara, Namitha R. “Future Trends in Technical Communication: Globalization.” 9 April 2009. <http://web.njit.edu/~nrs8/The_tide_of_globalization.pdf>.

Thakur, Priti. “Navigating the International Virtual Workplace.” Intercom. 56:4 (April 2009): 4-8.

While I, as a graduate student studying medical writing mind you, had difficulty understanding the associated legal documents, I did find some online advice columns on the subject.  According to the statistics I found, 3 in 4 medical bills contain errors, the majority of which are in the practitioner’s favor.  Unlike grocery stores, restaurants, and pretty much anywhere else, medical establishments don’t provide itemized bills–they simply tell you what you owe.  However, through my research I learned that patients have a right to ask for an itemized bill–though I suspect very few do.  Unfortunately, these itemized lists are not always very transparent–sometimes to a rather disturbing degree.  I, like most people I suspect, wouldn’t immediately be alarmed by a $129 charge for a mucous retention device or a $20 charge for a gauze disposal container.  However, perhaps we might react differently to the bill if we knew a “mucous retention device” was a box of kleenex and a “gauze disposal container” was a trash bag that’s had gauze thrown into it.  These kinds of prices and terminology have been frequently documented by actual patients at actual hospitals.

The only reasonable explanation for this terminology is a deliberate attempt to deceive patients.  If I, as a graduate student studying medical writing, did not immediately know what these terms meant, how can anyone but a medical practitioner be expected to?  While there are movements to increase transparency is issues like this, they are far from widespread adoption.  I think technical communicators share a special responsibility in cases like this to promote fairness and honesty and ensure that the power that comes with technical expertise is not abused.

After my wife and I informed the ER she didn’t have health insurance and provided proof of our measly incomes, they reduced our bill to a managable $250, so I decided not inquire into the matter any further.  However, last week we received another bill for $360 from the doctor on staff that night who spoke to my wife for less than five minutes and may have spent an extra few minutes after that filling out a chart in another room.  While I understand that doctors are highly trained and, thus, highly paid professionals, $4300/per hour seems like a rather high wage.  We’ve decided to send our income information and request a reduction like we did for the ER–as I felt they were very reasonable–but if our request is rejected, I am considering asking for a log of the doctor’s hours and activities and his usual hourly wage before paying for his “intermediate consultation”–whatever that means.

Although I would’ve described myself as almost fanatically ideological only a few years ago, I’ve  become much more pragmatic and must confess that my interest in the medical field is largely fueled by the availability of jobs in that field.  In the long-term, it is very possible that I will switch to another field of technical communication.  I would be especially interested in doing public relations or popular science writing, astronomy is of particular interest to me (though I suspect writing jobs in that field are in high demand), but I suspect I’ll have a better idea of what kind of work would be most appropriate for me after I’ve been working as a technical communicator for a few years.

The only qualm I have concerning this project concerns its length.  Apparently, the brochure should only be one page, front-and-back.  While the page will likely be filled with text and require some research to compose, it still falls short of the instructor’s requirement of five pages.  However, I may be able to supplement this project with another minor one and I am still waiting to hear back from another potential client, also a physician’s assistant, who may have a more substantial project I could undertake.

I am leaning toward using Camstudio to record the usability tests while taking manual notes or, possibly, using a video camera to manually recording users performing the tutorial/task.  Upon completion of the tutorial/task, users will be asked to complete a questionnaire.  The following is a tentative list of questions that will be included in the questionnaire:

1.  Which aspects of the Web site made it easy to navigate?

2.  Which aspects of the Web site made it difficult to navigate?

3.  Please list any skills you may have learned from the tutorial?

4.  Can you think of any tasks utilizing those skills that you would be interested in completing?

5.  Were you ever confused or frustrated during the tutorial?  When?

6.  Were there any times during the tutorial when you felt an image or video would be helpful but none were provided?

7.  Do you have any questions that were not addressed in the FAQ section?  What are they?

1. I learned that a (relatively) large percentage of users read instructions and/or complete online tutorials without using sound.

2. I learned how to manipulate images in several different useful ways using image manipulation software.

3. Through our class discussions, assigned readings, and perusing the existing GIMP documentation I’ve learned to more clearly distinguish between system-focused and user-focused instructions.

4. I’ve learned how to take and annotate screen captures and record videos using Jing.

5. I’ve acquired a basic grasp of the principles that define HTML Websites.

6. I’ve come to better recognize the merits (possibly even the necessity) of providing multiple access points for Web documentation.

7. I’m learning how to better disregard my personal preferences to more fully accommodate user needs.

8. I’m learning how to coordinate with group members in a more efficient manner.

9. I’m learning more about how to more effectively distribute tasks amongst group members and myself.

10. I’m learning how to integrate dissimilar writing styles and organizational structures into a single, cohesive document.

Questions I have:

1. How significant a role do subject matter specialists typically play in the development of technical documentation?

2. Which software proficiencies are technical communicators typically expected to possess?

3. Does technical documentation (when it does) generally cater to special needs users for economic, ethical, or legal reasons?