Communication Design Quarterly - SIGDOC - ACM

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Nov 1, 2013 ... effective and efficient methods of designing and communicating information; ... will include technical communication, information design, ...
Volume 2 Issue 1 November 2013

Communication Design Quarterly VolumeMachinery 1 Issue 1 Published by the Association for Computing January 2012 Special Interest Group for Design of Communication ISSN: 2166-1642

Editorial: Welcome to CDQ Volume 2...........................................................................................................3 Notes from the Chair .........................................................................................................................................4 Icon Design to Improve Communication of Health Information to Older Adults .................................6 Networked Knowledges: Student Collaborative Digital Composing as Communicative Action .....33 Column: Technical Writers @ Lisbon ...........................................................................................................59 Book review: Rhetorical Accessability: At the Intersection of Technical Communication and Disability Studies ...............................................................................................................................................61 Book review: The UX book: Process and guidelines for ensuring a quality user experience ............67

Communication Design Quarterly ACM SIGDOC (Special Interest Group Design of Communication) seeks to be the premier information source for industry, management, and academia in the multidisciplinary field of the design and communication of information. It contains a mix of peer-reviewed articles, columns, experience reports, and brief summaries of interesting research results. Communication Design Quarterly (CDQ) is archived in the ACM Digital Library. We invite you to contribute in any of the following areas: ƒ

Peer-reviewed articles. Articles that cross discipline boundaries as they focus on the effective and efficient methods of designing and communicating information; disciplines will include technical communication, information design, information architecture, interaction design, and human-computer interaction.

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Experience reports. Experience reports present project- or workplace-focused summaries of important technologies, techniques, or product processes.

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Interesting research results. Short reports on interesting research or usability results that lack the rigor for a full article. For example, pilot studies, graduate student projects, or corporate usability studies where full details can’t be released.

We are also interested in proposals for guest editing special issues. As a guest editor, you would be responsible for providing two peer reviewed articles on a specific topic and, potentially, coordinating with the column editors so their columns can complement the issue’s theme. By submitting your article for distribution in this Special Interest Group publication, you hereby grant to ACM the following non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide rights: ƒ

To publish in print on condition of acceptance by the editor

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To digitize and post your article in the electronic version of this publication

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To include the article in the ACM Digital Library and in Digital Library related Services

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To allow users to make a personal copy of the article for noncommercial, educational, or research purposes

As a contributing author, you retain copyright to your article and ACM will refer requests for republication directly to you. Therefore, ACM is asking all authors to include their contact information in their submissions. Opinions expressed in articles and letters are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily express the opinions of the ACM or SIGDOC. Author(s) should be contacted for reprint authorization. Information about joining SIGDOC is available at http://sigdoc.acm.org/join/.

CDQ Editors Co-editors Developmental editor Book review editor

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Michael Albers ([email protected]) Liza Potts ([email protected]) Kirk St. Amant ([email protected]) Guiseppe Getto ([email protected])

Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

Welcome to CDQ volume 2 Michael Albers Co-editor: Communication Design Quarterly

[email protected]

Welcome to the newest issue of Communication Design Quarterly (CDQ), volume 2.1. It’s been a year since we started this reboot, and now we get to move onto the second volume. Throughout the last year, we’ve published a range of articles and short essays, but we need more to fill the upcoming issues. For the academics, we need peer reviewed articles. From the corporate people, we need shorter works that tell about interesting results or ideas that you’ve encountered in your day to day work. Think in terms of the stuff you would blog about….if you had a blog. We also would like to see posters and a short article accompanying them. With this issue we start having columns and book reviews. We’ve lined up several people to write columns and they’ll each be writing two columns a year on a range of topics. With each columnist only writing twice per year, we can offer a wider range of topics, which we consider a good thing. If you want to be considered for reviewing a book, contact the book review editor Guiseppe Getto, [email protected]. And moving on this issue….. SIGDOC’s annual conference was held the end of September. Each year, SIGDOC gives out a student paper award that provides travel funds for the best student paper submitted for the conference program. This year the winner was Ljilja Kascak from Georgia Institute of Technology. In this issue, we have an expanded version of her paper. We also have a article, “Networked Knowledges: Student Collaborative Digital Composing as Communicative Action” by Guiseppe Getto from East Carolina University. We hope you enjoyed the four issues of CDQ volume 1 and we hope that CDQ volume 2 will be even better.

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Notes from the Chair Liza Potts SIGDOC chair [email protected] For those of you who were unable to join us in Greenville this year, I wanted to share with you an extended version of the State of the SIG talk that I gave at our conference in September. During the conference, I had senior colleagues tell me that they enjoyed the new energy at our conference, and I had junior colleagues tell me how welcoming they felt at SIGDOC. In the speech below, I invited conference attendees to become more involved. To volunteer, submit articles to CDQ, and invite others to our SIG. If you are reading this column, consider yourself equally invited. We are better together.

State of the SIG I am glad you are here. Whether you came from down the street at ECU or across the globe, whether you are a newcomer to SIGDOC or an experienced conference goer - welcome. SIGDOC is stronger for having you join us today. Part of our reboot is embracing new ideas, new volunteers, new leaders, and a new way of conceiving of the design of communication. Together, we have made this reboot possible. We are an interdisciplinary organization, a complex organization, focused on the design of communication. And whether we define that as information design, content strategy, usability testing, technical writing, information architecture, we are doing similar work with similar goals: improving the experiences of our participants. We have many industries and many fields represented here today, including technical communication, information systems, design, rhetoric and composition, and computer science. We are getting closer to an even distribution of practitioners, researchers, and teachers at SIGDOC. We can all benefit from such a diversity of thought, of experience. Seeing all of you here today tells me that our reboot is already well under way.

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We have grown, over the past few years, to refocus our work to broadly define the design of communication, to include today’s conference speakers on content strategy, designing for older populations, linked data, collaborative design, ethnography, the pragmatic web, and, I apologize, 4chan and reddit (that’s my own work) on social data. We have received a positive review from ACM (the parent organization of SIGDOC) based on the direction we are headed. We have launched a new publication, Communication Design Quarterly (CDQ), which I encourage all of you to support as peer reviewers, authors, and columnists. We are also working hard to reach across to birds of a feather organizations. We have sponsored the women's luncheon at the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing’s conference. We are making connections across the Council for Programs in Scientific and Technical Communication and IEEE’s Professional Communication Society that we hope to share with you soon. We have tasked newly formed committees tasked with our longterm growth and connecting with each other. We have become more inclusive, drawing in new volunteers and harnessing each other's energy. I would like to encourage all of you to jump on board and help build a stronger, forward-thinking SIG together. I am looking forward to this new chapter of our SIG, where we welcome young scholars and industry practitioners, where we can debate these ideas across disciplines, partner with our sister organizations, and become better together - all in the name of the design of communication. As you sit in our talks, meet old colleagues, and make new friends, I am looking forward to hearing your ideas about how we can continue to reboot our SIG and launch it into a future where we continue to work on the cutting edge of communication design. I am inviting you to come talk to us, your board and volunteers, about becoming involved. Submit papers to CDQ. Start a new student chapter. Involve your industry partners and department colleagues. Volunteer. And together, this reboot will continue forward, helping us launch SIGDOC into a new era.

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Icon Design to Improve Communication of Health Information to Older Adults Ljilja Kascak School of Industrial Design, Georgia Institute of Technology [email protected]

Claudia B. Rebola School of Industrial Design, Georgia Institute of Technology [email protected]

Richard Braunstein School of Industrial Design, Georgia Institute of Technology [email protected]

Jon A. Sanford School of Industrial Design, Georgia Institute of Technology [email protected]

Abstract This paper describes the studies undertaken in order to improve and simplify communication of health information for a Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) devices, specifically the BL Healthcare Access Tablet, to older adults. Current icon and information design of the RPM devices are not well designed to reflect the needs, experiences and limitations of the older adults. In addition to this, compliance with self-management schedules is often poor due to complex and unclear instructions and information design. The issue of compliance, with the need for effective communication between chronic disease patients and healthcare professionals emphasize the need for the appropriate information design and c o m m u n i c a t i o n technology. Communication o f h e a l t h i n f o r m a t i o n w a s improved from the perspective of the user experience (UX) design and information design. For the purpose of 6

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addressing the UX redesign, usability studies were conducted, followed by the information redesign and icons design. Although medical peripherals, such as an electronic thermometer, are required to measure the patient information, a mobile or tablet application can easily be used to record, send and view this data. A concept for the RPM mobile application is developed, that could be used on existing tablets and smartphones, thus eliminating the need for the current costly hardware.

Introduction Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), is a telehealth care mode (Fraser, Kwon, & Neuer, 2011) that uses a home-based monitoring system to address the healthcare needs of older adults in an efficient and effective way, and facilitates greater independence of older adults (Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, 2008). RPM supports patients with chronic conditions (L. C. Chiang, W. C. Chen, Y. T. Dai, & Y. L. Ho, 2012) by recording and storing data, such as vital signs or symptoms (Suter, Suter, & Johnston, 2011), from peripheral devices and transmitting the data to healthcare professionals. RPM has been proven to be useful to community-dwelling older adults who have difficulty in accessing care due to disability, transportation, or isolation, effectively engaging them in self-care disease management (L.-C. Chiang, W.C. Chen, Y.-T. Dai, & Y.-L. Ho, 2012). Chronic disease patients are personally responsible for their daily care. They must actively participate in their treatment in order to achieve effective management of chronic diseases (Suter et al., 2011). However, due to complex and unclear user interfaces (UIs) and information design (e.g., instructions), compliance with daily self-management plans is not always possible (Thong, Hong, & Tam; Fraser et al., 2011). One of the problems that can make older adults experience dissatisfaction while using technology is usability. Several RPM studies reported that certain fonts are difficult to read, metaphors and icons difficult to be interpreted, and that memory and motor problems can make it hard to operate a system (Gargiulo et al., 2010). Good information design for older adults is good design for everyone (Redish & Chisnell, 2004). Text should be clear, straightforward, and in the active voice. In

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addition to this, usability needs to be assessed when designing for older adults, taking into an account choice of the icons, fonts, and font sizes (Gargiulo et al., 2010). Similarly, successful implementation of RPM requires easy-to-use devices with good information design. Good information design helps end users to use the information in the way that suits their unique interests (Albers & Mazur, 2003). It delivers clear, simple, meaningful, appropriate, and core information (Albers & Mazur, 2003). It can lead to safe and effective equipment operation, installation, and maintenance (Leonardi, Mennecozzi, Not, Pianesi, & Zancanaro, 2008). Although information technology (IT) integration in the medical field has increased during the past decade, UI and information design has not been optimized (Eisenstein, Vanderdonckt, & Puerta, 2001). Moreover, usability testing is not required for UI and information design of the health IT systems (Eisenstein et al., 2001). Nonetheless, it is vital to incorporate various usercentered design methods and testing of the user’s responses to ensure the quality of information design (Albers & Mazur, 2003). In order to deliver good information design, human factors should be considered early in the design process, and user testing should be conducted throughout the whole design process involving participants from the end-user population (Leonardi et al., 2008). The purpose of this paper is to describe the studies undertaken in order to improve and simplify communication of health information for RPM devices, specifically the BL Healthcare Access Tablet, to older adults. Concern over health risks due to noncompliance with self-management schedules is addressed in this case study by the UX redesign, information and icon design. Following this line of work, there is a need to develop easier to use and improved information design of the RPM devices. This paper describes information design, usability studies, and icon design for the proposed RPM mobile application concept, which could be used on existing tablets and smartphones.

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Literature Review Current market solutions for RPM are stationary hubs that connect via Bluetooth with medical peripheral devices. RPM hubs take and record health-related readings, send data to the server, making those accessible to the healthcare providers. According to the one study (Gargiulo et al., 2010), RPM devices have many design requirements with portability (i.e., use of mobile devices) being one of the most important ones. Mobile computing poses a series of challenges for information and UI design and development. UIs must accommodate the capabilities of various mobile devices, such as tablets, smartphones, and medical peripheral devices. In addition, UIs need to be suitable for different contexts of use, while preserving consistency and usability (Eisenstein et al., 2001). Older adults, in general, are considered a market niche for the sales of RPM technology products (Leonardi et al., 2008). As a result, RPM hardware and software have not been designed to suit their needs (Dourish, 1997). Although, perception of high benefits associated with the adoption of technology is valuable motivation for older adults to accept perceived costs and effort associated with using a technology (Melenhorst, Rogers, & Caylor, 2001), UI and information design that are specifically designed to meet the physical, sensory and functional needs of older adults would increase its usefulness and usability. To design an effective UI, it is important to share a common language with machines in order to naturally interact with them (Norman, 2007). Norman (2007) suggests that technologies are not capable to adapt their language to different classes of humans, unless they are designed to do so. Familiarity of the technology language to tell about its usage, objectives and meanings, covering issues of usability, accessibility, accountability, and acceptability has a great importance in the communication between older adults and technology (Leonardi et al., 2008). In addition, all users benefit from a good information design (Redish & Chisnell, 2004) (Chadwick-Dias, McNulty, & Tullis, 2003). Zaphiris, Kurniawan and Ellis (2003) found that all users,

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young ones and older adults, are more successful finding information in a broad and shallow information architectures. Color coding and spatial location can assist older adults in discriminating visual elements on the page (Wright, 2000). Icons designed for usability improve the user experience (Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, 2008). Usable icons need to be clear and legible, simple, consistent, and familiar (Galitz, 2007). They should enhance recognition, be meaningful, and hasten option selection. Choice of the color and type improve instruction (Marcus, 1986). An important principle of good icon design is to always provide a text label (Galitz, 2007). As discussed by Bernard (2003), older adults prefer larger font sizes and sans serif fonts over serif fonts (M. Bernard, Liao, & Mills, 2001). In in a study by Bernard, Liao, and Mills (2001), serif fonts (Georgia and Times New Roman) were compared to sans serif fonts (Arial and Verdana) at 12- and 14-points. In this study 27 older adults between the ages of 62 and 83 preferred the 14-point fonts that promoted faster reading and were found more legible. The sans serif fonts were more preferred than the serif fonts. Sorg (1985) found that older adults preferred to read sans serif font Helvetica, compared to serif font Century Schoolbook. Coyne and Nielsen (2002) recommend that designers always need to offer an option for users to change the font size. Visual principles such as balance, contrast, and alignment are guides that need to be considered (Kimball, 2013), particularly older adults who often have problems with visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and the ability to distinguish colors (Morrell, Dailey, Feldman, Mayhorn, & Echt, 2003; Fisk, Rogers, Charness, Czaja, & Sharit, 2009). Similarly, visual problems will cause older adults to have difficulty noticing small and subtle elements. As a result, placement of design elements, such as touch buttons for the functions of the mobile application, should be used to indicate importance, precedence, and sequence (Jessica & Matthews, 2004). In addition, high contrast between touch buttons and the background makes it easier for older adults to remember what they have seen and read (Morrell, 2001; Zajicek & Morrissey, 2003).

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Information design focuses is on the effectiveness of conveying and understanding information. Guidelines for print materials when writing text for older adults work for mobile applications as well. Writing in active voice, writing to “you” the user, using the action verbs, not nouns made from verbs, and using words your users are familiar with are just a few of the guidelines that need to be considered when designing for older adults (Redish & Chisnell, 2004). In addition to these guidelines, Coyne and Nielsen (2002) found that older adults had difficulty with technical language and computer, Web, and domain-specific jargon. Using simple and plain language is extremely important here (Fisk et al., 2009). Coyne and Nielsen (2002) also found that technical information needs to be presented in no-technical way and needs to be easy to read and understand.

Purpose of the Study Specific Aims of the Study The purpose of this case study is to describe the studies undertaken in order to improve and simplify communication of health information for RPM devices to older adults. The main emphasis was placed on the icon design in order to improve compliance, and effectiveness of communication between chronic disease patients and healthcare professionals. Complex and unclear instructions and information design of the current RPM devices emphasize the need for the appropriate information design and communication technology. Usability studies need to be conducted throughout the whole case study in order to address UX redesign. The significance of this case study is advancement of new designs of RPM devices by developing RPM mobile application concept that could be used on existing tablets and smartphones, thus eliminating the need for costly hub units (Kascak, Rébola, Braunstein, & Sanford, 2013). Portability provides chronic disease patients with the advantage to get medical advice and send vital sign measurements from any place, integrating RPM into their daily lives. Additional benefit to the patients is that “convergence with consumer electronic products will enable patients to use

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devices they are already familiar and comfortable with” (Malkary, 2006).

Design Criteria The literature review resulted in the list of problems that were summarized as a set of design criteria, as follows: ƒ

Design RPM customizable mobile application concept that could be used on existing tablets and smartphones,

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Improve information design, by choosing and organizing relevant content,

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Design simple and clear icons for communication of health information to older adults,

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Design icons that are easy to be interpreted by the older adults,

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Have larger graphics and font sizes for both smartphone and tablet,

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Choose fonts that are easy to read by the older adults.

Methodology The BL Healthcare Access Tablet The BL Healthcare Access Tablet was used for the purpose of this case study, as one of the widely adopted RPM devices on the market. The BL Healthcare Access Tablet UI provides various applications that could be accessed form the home screen (see Figure 1). Vital signs monitoring is the main function that provides connection with medical peripheral devices. Charts function visualizes vital signs data. Setting up the sessions and messaging with the healthcare provider are two functions that provide communication with the healthcare professionals. A few other wellness and education-related functions like the Workout Tracker and Medical Terms are part of the overall UI.

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Figure 1. Graphic UI of the BL Helathcare Access Tablet.

Design Study Usability testing requires relatively small test groups (Galitz, 2007). Nielsen and Hackos (1993) state that “elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.” When dealing with homogeneous group of users, observing five users can identify a high percentage of the most critical errors. For efficient and productive usability testing five is the optimal number of users (Nielsen, 1994; Nielsen & Hackos, 1993; Rowan, Gregor, Sloan, & Booth, 2000). Usability testing with more than five users is proven to be waste of time and money, which could be spent on assessment of design changes (Galitz, 2007) and more tests. The icon design case study was organized into three phases: 1 – User Experience, 2 – Evaluation/Testing, and 3 – Concept Refinement.

Phase 1 – User Experience The purpose of the Phase 1 was to improve the UX of The BL Healthcare Access Tablet with the goal of improving its icon design and information design, by conducting usability studies. Specific goals included: ƒ

Usability Testing 1: one hour-long observation followed by the interview with the group of older adults testing the UI of the chosen RPM device,

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Usability Report 1: analysis of the results retrieved from the observation, and

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Icon Redesign: application of the results to the RPM device icon redesign; initial concepts development.

Usability Testing 1 was conducted with six participants from a local Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC). One hourlong observation was performed with each participant individually, followed by an interview. Participants were asked to perform task of using the Sleep Journal UI of The BL Healthcare Access Tablet, on both the iPhone and the iPad. Important relationship between the sleep quality of the older adults and their chronic conditions (Foley, Ancoli-Israel, Britz, & Walsh, 2004) was the reason for choosing the “Sleep Journal” function for the testing purposes. This is the way for users to report daily task of conducting the sleep quality survey. The tasks were video recorded, and note-taking was conducted by the facilitator. The interview questions were presented to the participants following the observation. Navigation through the Sleep Journal UI, level of satisfaction, and visual interface were tested during the interview. Screen size management and differences, including the ease of use, were tested using both the iPhone and the iPad. Comments on differences and screen size preferences were taken in the section of overall impressions. Participants were provided with the five-point Likert scale (Very easy, Easy, Neutral, Difficult, and Very difficult or Excellent, Good, Neutral, Not so good, and Not good at all) for the first list of questions. The questions regarding the satisfaction of using the Sleep Journal UI of The BL Healthcare Access Tablet on both the iPhone and the iPad had the following possible answers: Very satisfied, Satisfied, Neutral, Dissatisfied, and Very dissatisfied. Usability Report 1 was followed by the icon redesign with various designs of visuals (icons, color coordination, and button sizes). Exploration of different icons for touch buttons representing different functions of the RPM mobile application took place during this phase. Three sets of icons for the touch buttons were designed for the following functions of the mobile application: video call, charts, messages, settings, sleep journal, contacts, and sessions.

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Phase 2 – Evaluation/Testing Phase 2 was dedicated to the evaluation of the improved icon concepts by conducting additional usability testing with the purpose of choosing the final concept. Specific goals included: ƒ

Usability Testing 2: one hour-long observation followed by the interview with the group of five older adults testing the improved icon concepts on the smartphone.

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Usability Report 2: analysis of the observation and choosing the final concept.

Usability Testing 2 was conducted with five participants from the same local Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC). One hour-long observation was performed with each participant individually, followed by an interview. Participants were asked to perform task of using the mockup UI on the iPhone. HTML with JQuery Mobile mockup was made for the purpose of this usability testing. Mockup application had all the functions of the RPM mobile application: ƒ

Charts, as the main function of visualizing and recording the body vital measurements,

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Alert touch button, which calls 911 in a case of emergency (in the case of this mockup personal number was used),

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Video call, including the voice call option (the same personal number was used for the mockup version),

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Sleep Journal, daily survey of the patient’s sleep quality (survey question pages were designed),

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Messages, providing the health-related messaging (in the case of a mockup the first page was designed),

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Sessions, allowing for scheduling the check-ups and visits to the doctor’s office (scheduling the checkup by inserting name and date preferred),

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Contacts (Contacts sample page was designed),

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Settings, which provides for customization based on the chronic condition, personalization based on the user’s preferences, and medicine reminder (Settings sample page was designed).

Participants were asked to go through the task of using all the functions on the home screen (video call, charts, messages, settings, sleep journal, contacts, and sessions) and the Alert touch button. Observation was video recorded and note-taking was conducted by the facilitator. The goal of the second usability study was to test the icon design and information design with the mockup mobile application concept including: navigation through the UI, visual interface including its icons, colors, sizes, shapes, and graphics, screen size management, level of satisfaction, information inclusion, ease of use, and overall impressions. Interview questions were presented to the participants. The same list of questions used during the Usability Testing 1 was used for the Usability Testing 2. For the first list of questions participants were given the 5-point Likert scale. The same criteria were used as the one in the Usability Testing 1. Interview continued with the same list of open-ended questions used for the purpose of the Usability Testing 1, asking for their overall thoughts on device itself. In addition to this, three sets of icons for the home screen buttons were tested. Participants were asked to associate each function of the RPM mobile application concept with one of the three icons. The goal of this task was to find the icon that potential users associate the best with the given function. All the functions (video call, charts, messages, settings, sleep journal, contacts, and sessions) were available on the mockup home screen.

Phase 3 – Concept Refinement Phase 3 consisted of the final concept development. Final icon concepts were designed based on the results of the Usability Report 2. Concept refinement consisted of the following phases:

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Design of the icons with the color coordination

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Choosing the right font and font size

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Peer review

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Prioritizing the functions of the RPM mobile application

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Home Screen concept development for both the iPhone and the iPad

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Future design considerations

The final concept development started with designing the icons for the Home Screen touch buttons for both the smartphone and the tablet, which represented each of the functions RPM mobile application provided. The right font and font size for the functions of the mobile application were chosen. Different icons for all the functions were designed and tested in a peer review with a group of five participants that were considered experts in the field, with the goal of choosing the most adequate one for each one of the functions. Color coordination for the icons and fonts for the functions were also tested here.

Results User Experience Usability Testing 1 The goal of the usability testing was to test navigation through the Sleep Journal UI, visual interface (icons, colors, sizes, shapes, and graphics), screen size management, information inclusion, ease of use, and subjective satisfaction with UI of The BL Healthcare Access Tablet’s Sleep Journal. Usability Report 1 Usability Report 1 summarized all the results of the Usability Study 1 (see Graph 1). Satisfaction with the UI, icons, colors, size, shapes, and graphic, as well as the ease of use and navigation through the UI were rated as excellent by all the participants. The executive summary reported that all participants had an issue with the touchscreen navigation of both the iPhone and the iPad. Problems included increasing the size of the screen unintentionally when tapping. One participant had a negative comment on the screen size: “Small size is not good for eyes.” This participant would have used the iPhone when needed outside the house. The other participant wanted to have bigger size of the scale graphics on the iPhone.

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Problems found with the Sleep Journal UI reported confusing time navigation using the time picker and four questions that were found unclear. Positive findings reported excellent colors, size, shape, and graphics, easiness of use and navigation, and overall satisfaction with the product. The information architecture was the part of the information design process. It analyzed the initial interaction with the functions that RPM mobile application provides (see Figure 2). User interaction was simplified by taking fewer steps during the initial interaction of logging into the mobile application and using the Home Page with all the functions. The first step is logging into the RPM mobile application, which is required during the first time use only. Opening the RPM mobile application leads the user to the Home Page with all the functions. Tapping the function touch button opens the chosen function page. User interaction is simplified in order to avoid unnecessary steps and to improve the information design and entire UX.

Easy ti navigate the UI

6 Excellent Good

Visual Interface

6 Neutral Not so good

Satisfaction

6 Not good at all 0%

50%

100%

Graph 1. Results of the Interview Questions: Usability Report 1

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Figure 2. Information Architecture for the Initial Interaction. Icon Redesign Three sets of different icons for the touch buttons were developed for the following functions of the RPM mobile application: video call, charts, messages, settings, sleep journal, contacts, and sessions. Participants tested sets of icons with the goal of choosing the most relevant and appropriate icon for each function. We asked participants to choose the icon that they associate the most with the function (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Three Sets of the Icons for the Buttons.

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HTML5 with jQuery Mobile was used to develop the prototype of the RPM mobile application for the purpose of the Usability Testing 2. The prototype had a log in page, the Home Screen with all the functions of the RPM mobile application (video call, charts, messages, settings, sleep journal, contacts, and sessions), the first page of all the functions of the application, and three pages of the Sleep Journal function.

Evaluation/Testing Usability Testing 2 Goal of the usability testing was to test navigation through the UI, visual interface (icons, colors, sizes, shapes, and graphics), screen size management, information inclusion, ease of use, and subjective satisfaction with the RPM mobile application UI. In addition to this, three sets of icon designs were tested and associated with words representing the functions of the RPM mobile application (video call, charts, messages, settings, sleep journal, contacts, and sessions), with the goal of choosing the most adequate ones for the final concept development. Usability Report 2 Usability Report 2 summarized all the finding from the Usability Study 2. Executive summary included results of the interview questions presented in Graph 2. Results of the icons testing can be found in the Table 1 (“P” was used for the term participant). Participants of the Usability Testing 2 associated word “Chart” with the icon that had the image of the chart. The word “Contacts” was associated with the image of the address book. Participants associated word “Messages” with the word cloud with smiley face. “Sessions” was associated with the icon of the professional, while “Settings” was connected with the gears. Cloud with letters Z that writes represented the “Sleep Journal,” and camera was associated with the “Video Call.”

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Easy ti navigate the UI

3

1

1 Excellent

Visual Interface

3

1

Good

1

Neutral Not so good Not good at all Satisfaction

3

0%

1

50%

1

100%

Graph 2. Results of the Interview Questions: Usability Report 2 Icons that were associated with the functions of the mobile application the most are presented in Figure 4. Table 1. Results of the Icons Testing Functions

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Charts

3

3

2

3

3

Contacts

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Messages

3

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1

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Sessions

2

1

1

3

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Settings

3

1

3

1

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2

3

2

3

2

2

2

2

2

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Sleep Journal Video Call

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Figure 4. Icons That Were Associated the Most With the Functions of the RPM Mobile Application.

Concept Refinement Peer Review Choice of fonts was determined based on the results of the research and the Peer Review with a group of five participants that were considered experts in the field. Research reported that older adults prefer larger font sizes, specifically 14point font size. They also prefer sans serif fonts over serif fonts (M. L. Bernard, 2003). Choice of the following sans serif fonts was presented to the participants: Arial, Arial Rounded MT Bold, Calibri, Estrangelo Edessa, Helvetica, Mangal Bold, Raavi, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, and Vrinda (see Table 2). 14-point font size was used. Results of the peer review reported that Mangal Bold was the preferred font. Table 2. Results of the Peer Review: Fonts Charts

Charts

Charts

Charts

Charts

1

1

0

0

0

Charts

Charts

Charts

Charts

Charts

4

0

0

0

0

Based on the results of the Usability Study 2 and the Usability Report 2, icons for the RPM mobile application functions were designed. Reference colors for the icons design were black, white, and cyan. Black and white were used as contrasting colors, and cyan was used as an accent color. The order by which they were presented is the following one: Contacts, Sessions, Video Call, Charts, Messages, Sleep Journal, and Settings (see Figure 5). The “Alert button” was designed based on the results of the Usability Testing 2. All the participants of the study required the 22

Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

“Alertt button” to o be promin nent, spread d across thee whole pag ge, and located at the top p of the screeen. The deesign of the “Alert buttton” explorred differen nt sizes and d representaations of th he alert sign nage. It was designed d as a red butto on, associating one witth the impo ortance of its function. f

Figuree 5. Icons Concepts C fo or the Finall Concept Developme D ent. Resultts of the Peer Review finalized f icons design for the butttons of the Ho ome Screen n that will represent r alll the RPM mobile m app plication functions (see Taable 3). Color coordinatio on was also o explored based b on th he Usability y Study 2 findings. All th he participaants preferreed bright co olors and co ontrast. Color coordinatio on was preesented to th he participaants (see Figure 6). Based d on the resu ults of the peer p review w, icons design was fin nalized. As thee reference,, the initial set of iconss with the reeference co olors was placed p next to the iconss with diffeerent brightt colors optiions (color coordination). Particiipants weree asked to choose c one of o the o for the icons. color options

Comm munication Dessign Quarterlyy 2.1 November 2013

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Table 3. Results of the Peer Review: Icons for the Buttons of the Home Screen Functions

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Contacts

6

2

2

4

2

Sessions

6

2

1

3

2

Video Call

8

7

1

7

8

Charts

4

3

1

1

4

Messages

5

2

1

3

2

Sleep Journal

1

2

2

7

7

Settings

2

3

3

2

3

Alarm

2

2

2

2

2

Participants preferred the original choice of black, white, and cyan, and also warm color options in Video Call, Charts, Sleep Journal, and Settings.

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Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

Figuree 6. Color Coordinatio C on for the Icons. I Chartss icons num mber 1 and number 4 got g equal nu umber of votes. v In order to keep con nsistent app pearance off all the icon ns, Chart iccon numb ber 4 was ch hosen for th he final desiign (see Tab ble 4). Tablee 4. Results of the Peerr Review: Icons I for th he Buttons Funcctions

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Conttacts

1

1

1

1

1

Sessiions

1

2

1

1

2

Video Call

1

2

1

2

1

Charrts

1

2

1

2

1

Messsages

1

2

1

2

1

1

2

1

2

1

Settin ngs

1

2

1

1

1

Alertt

2

2

2

2

2

Sleep p Journ nal

Comm munication Dessign Quarterlyy 2.1 November 2013

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Since most of the icons have h cyan as a a backgrround colorr, cyan was ch hosen as thee backgroun nd color forr the final Chart C icon as a well. Cy yan was sliightly chang ged into a more m pleasiing and mo ore neutral co olor (see Fig gure 7 and 8). 8

Fiigure 7. Fin nal Icons Design.

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Communicaation Design Quarterly Q 2.1 November N 20113

Figuree 8. Final Iccons Desig gn for Both Tablet and d Smartpho one.

Concclusion The co ommunicattion of health informattion for thee RPM devicces, speciffically The BL B Healthcaare Access Tablet, wass improved d by the icon design d study y. Icons forr the RPM mobile m appllication were impro oved and ad dapted for the t use by the t older ad dults. Fontss that are eaasy to read and a icons th hat are easy y to interprret were cho osen, provid ding easier use and grreater satisffaction with h the produ uct and the service. Iconss were desig gned to be recognizab ble, clear, sim mple, and meaningful. m Bigger graaphics and font f sizes fo or both smartp phone and tablet weree chosen, to o accommodate the neeeds of the old der adults. RPM mobile m or taablet appliccation can be b used to record, visu ualize, and seend data to the server. This way data d could be b accessed d from the serrver by the healthcare provider’s office. In addition a to this, t other RPM functiions, like viideo conferrencing, sch heduled sessions,

Comm munication Dessign Quarterlyy 2.1 November 2013

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recording sleep quality, and medicine reminder can also be done through this mobile application. This unique approach of eliminating the need for the hub unit and its manufacturing by designing customizable RPM mobile application concept led to the improvement of the whole RPM system. The Mobile Health Application has a log-in page to allow for caregivers and patients to have separate entries to the application and provide for additional security of the data. Application has the following functions that could be accessed from the main page: ƒ

The Alert button, which will call 911 by pressing it once in a case of emergency,

ƒ

Charts, which collect, record, and visualize various vitals such as blood pressure, weight, body temperature, blood glucose levels, etc.,

ƒ

Daily Sleep Journal, a short survey of health and sleep-related questions,

ƒ

Video call, which allows for video conferencing, virtual clinic visits, health counseling, video visits for case management, coordination of care between multiple parties, wound/skin inspection using plug-n cameras, directly observed therapy, and video conferencing with family members,

ƒ

Scheduled sessions with the healthcare provider,

ƒ

Health-related messaging,

ƒ

Contacts,

ƒ

Medicine reminder, that is incorporated into the Settings function,

ƒ

Settings, where patients can personalize their mobile application and healthcare providers can customize the application based on the chronic disease.

The Mobile Health Application is customizable for the patients with different chronic conditions. It can be personalized by the users by uploading different images and backgrounds, setting different fonts and font sizes, choosing background and text colors, and adjusting accessibility modes.

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Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

The UX redesign had the greatest impact on users by adding the portability to the RPM and giving them the opportunity to use the RPM mobile application outside their homes. This flexibility gives the chronic disease patients more freedom and may enhance their daily amount of physical activities, thus further benefitting their health. Additional benefit to these patients is commodity of using the devices they are already familiar and comfortable with.

Future Work Next steps for this case study will include adding other important features to the Mobile Health Application, with related icons. There are a few additional features that could help in patients’ health management: ƒ

Educational videos,

ƒ

Health-related games and readings as a part of the library,

ƒ

Social aspect of connecting with other patients.

Development of new technologies allows for advanced types of social networking for patients (Czejdo & Baszun, 2010). Social support can increase patients’ possibility for success in achieving health-related goals (Czejdo & Baszun, 2010). In addition to adding the features to the RPM mobile application, the case study requires future steps of conducting the additional usability studies and further refinements of the final icons concept.

Works Cited Albers, M. J., & Mazur, M. B. (2003). Content and complexity: information design in technical communication: Routledge. Bernard, M., Liao, C. H., & Mills, M. (2001). The effects of font type and size on the legibility and reading time of online text by older adults. Paper presented at the CHI'01 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Bernard, M. L. (2003). Criteria for optimal web design (designing for usability). Retrieved on April, 13, 2005.

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Chadwick-Dias, A., McNulty, M., & Tullis, T. (2003). Web usability and age: how design changes can improve performance. Paper presented at the ACM SIGCAPH Computers and the Physically Handicapped. Chiang, L.-C., Chen, W.-C., Dai, Y.-T., & Ho, Y.-L. (2012). The effectiveness of telehealth care on caregiver burden, mastery of stress, and family function among family caregivers of heart failure patients: A quasi-experimental study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 49(10), 1230–1242. Chiang, L. C., Chen, W. C., Dai, Y. T., & Ho, Y. L. (2012). The effectiveness of telehealth care on caregiver burden, mastery of stress, and family function among family caregivers of heart failure patients: A quasi-experimental study. International Journal of Nursing Studies. Coyne, K. P., & Nielsen, J. (2002). Web Usability for Senior Citizens. Retrieved from Nielsen Norman Group Report. Czejdo, B. D., & Baszun, M. (2010). Remote patient monitoring system and a medical social network. International Journal of Social and Humanistic Computing, 1(3), 273–281. Dourish, P. (1997). Accounting for system behaviour: Representation, reflection and resourceful action. Computers and Design in Context, (145–170). MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. Eisenstein, J., Vanderdonckt, J., & Puerta, A. (2001). Applying model-based techniques to the development of UIs for mobile computers. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Fisk, A. D., Rogers, W. A., Charness, N., Czaja, S. J., & Sharit, J. (2009). Designing for older adults: Principles and creative human factors approaches: CRC press. Foley, D., Ancoli-Israel, S., Britz, P., & Walsh, J. (2004). Sleep disturbances and chronic disease in older adults: results of the 2003 National Sleep Foundation Sleep in America Survey. Journal of psychosomatic research, 56(5), 497–502. Fraser, H., Kwon, Y. J., & Neuer, M. (2011). The Future of Connected Health Devices. Retrieved from touchhealthsciences.com. 28–34.

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Galitz, W. O. (2007). The essential guide to user interface design: an introduction to GUI design principles and techniques. Wiley: New York. Gargiulo, G., Bifulco, P., Cesarelli, M., Jin, C., McEwan, A., & van Schaik, A. (2010). Wearable dry sensors with Bluetooth connection for use in remote patient monitoring systems. Studies In Health Technology And Informatics, 161, 57–65. Jessica, M., & Matthews, J. (2004). Blind leading the blind: theorizing a web for the visually impaired. Usability Professionals’ Association Proceedings Kascak, L., Rébola, C. B., Braunstein, R., & Sanford, J. A. (2013). Icon design for user interface of remote patient monitoring mobile devices. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 31st ACM international conference on Design of communication. Kimball, M. A. (2013). Visual design principles: An empirical study of design lore. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 43(1). Leonardi, C., Mennecozzi, C., Not, E., Pianesi, F., & Zancanaro, M. (2008). Designing a familiar technology for elderly people. Gerontechnology, 7(2), 151. Malkary, G. (2006). Healthcare without bounds: Trends in remote patient monitoring. [Study - Customer Needs and Strategies]. Spyglass Consulting Group. Marcus, A. (1986). Computer graphics today, tutorial 10: Proper color, type use improve instruction. Tutorial Notes for Visible Language Programming: User Interface Design, Information Graphics, and Documentation. Berkeley, CA: Aaron Marcus and Associates. Melenhorst, A.-S., Rogers, W. A., & Caylor, E. C. (2001). The use of communication technologies by older adults: exploring the benefits from the user's perspective. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. Morrell, R. W. (2001). Older Adults, Health Information, and the World Wide Web: Psychology Press.

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Morrell, R. W., Dailey, S. R., Feldman, C., Mayhorn, C. B., & Echt, K. V. (2003). Older adults and information technology: A compendium of scientific research and web site accessibility guidelines. National Institute of Health. Retrieved from http://www.nih.nia.gov/. Nielsen, J. (1994). How to conduct a heuristic evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-aheuristic-evaluation/. Nielsen, J., & Hackos, J. T. (1993). Usability engineering (Vol. 125184069). Academic press: Boston. Norman, D. (2007). The Design of Future Things. New York: Basic Books. Redish, J., & Chisnell, D. (2004). Designing web sites for older adults: A review of recent research. Retrieved June, 9, 2008. Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce. (2008). The National Academies Press. Rowan, M., Gregor, P., Sloan, D., & Booth, P. (2000). Evaluating web resources for disability access. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the fourth international ACM Conference on Assistive technologies. Sorg, J. A. (1985). An exploratory study of type face, type size and color paper preferences among older adults. Pennsylvania State University. Suter, P., Suter, W. N., & Johnston, D. (2011). Theory-based telehealth and patient empowerment. Population health management, 14(2), 87–92. Thong, J. Y., Hong, W., & Tam, K. Y. What leads to user acceptance of digital libraries? . Communications of the ACM, 47(11), 78–83. Zajicek, M., & Morrissey, W. (2003). Multimodality and interactional differences in older adults. Universal Access in the Information Society, 2(2), 125–133. Zaphiris, P., Kurniawan, S. H., & Ellis, R. D. (2003). Age related differences and the depth vs. breadth tradeoff in hierarchical online information systems Universal Access Theoretical Perspectives, Practice, and Experience (pp. 23–42): Springer.

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Networked Knowledges: Student Collaborative Digital Composing as Communicative Action Guiseppe Getto East Carolina University [email protected]

Abstract As Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) utilized in workplaces, classrooms, and community organizations continue to proliferate, it follows that the kinds of knowledge necessary to assemble those technologies in order to engage in effective professional communication are becoming increasingly complex. This article details a study conducted of two student teams engaged in a service-learning class in which they were tasked with producing high-quality digital products—a mini-documentary and a simple, but interactive website—for client organizations—an art classroom in a local public school and a mentoring initiative within a local non-profit. The main findings of this study are that students mobilized a variety of resources and created a flexible network of technologies, knowledges, people, and modes of communication in order to address issues pertinent to their clients. In addition, I argue that the most important resource students mobilized was knowledge itself, indicating that one of the most important aspects of digital composing may be in-depth, practical knowledge of technologies, modes, and the genres they involve. Ultimately, the implications of this limited, classroom-based case study are that a situated understanding of how to assemble knowledges for the effective design of communication within a given communication infrastructure may be more important than access to the most cutting-edge modes and technologies, especially when working with resource-poor organizational clients.

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“In a knowledge society, the work of citizenship is knowledge work.”— Jeffrey T. Grabill As Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) utilized in workplaces and other community spaces continue to proliferate, knowledge workers and engaged citizens face both a crisis and an opportunity in the ways they think about and enact communication in a variety of contexts. As many researchers have noted, this proliferation has created a new flexibility in the organization of communication tasks, knowledge-making, and learning (Bay 2010; Brandt 2005; Graham & Whalen 2008; Spinuzzi 2008). It also follows that such flexibility requires new forms of coordination and collaboration among professional communicators, forms of coordination that can, as Spinuzzi (2007) noted, help “sociotechnical networks hold together and form dense interconnections among and across work activities that have traditionally been separated by temporal, spatial, or disciplinary boundaries” (p. 268). Additionally, these new forms of coordinative work, forged within a slew of ever-changing media, technologies, and social groups, will require their own unique sets of skills, practices, and knowledges. In order to investigate the impacts of this kind of networked knowledge-making in a classroom setting, I traced the composing processes of two teams of service-learning students engaged in the production of digital projects—a simple, but interactive website and a mini-documentary—for client organizations.1 Research questions centered on the ways students utilized various resources available to them during composing, in the context of the networks of resources they found available: 1. What communicative resources (e.g., familiarity with particular technologies, learning experiences, etc.) did students utilize before enrolling in a service-learning class that requires them to perform digital composing for an external audience? 2. What communicative resources did students utilize during their actual service-learning work, and how did these resources compare to past resources students had used?

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To answer these questions, I collected a variety of data, including video-taped observations of student collaborative composing and process documents students produced along the way. Ultimately, I found this research situation to be exceedingly complex, interesting, and educational, both for myself and for my student participants and their clients. As I detail below, however, this research may also hold important implications for the way professional communication educators, researchers, and practitioners think about networked knowledge making. I begin by detailing my methodology for data collection and analysis, followed by a discussion of specific findings regarding the types of knowledge I was able to classify—technological, modal, and generic. In the interests of space, I focus on describing how students designed communication through knowledge work by using technologies to assemble modes into genres. My goal will be to trace how each team mobilized past knowledge in service of the present communication situation, and how this mobilization impacted each team’s assembly of specific modes and technologies into recognizable genres. I then describe how this research project has served as a pilot for future research into networked knowledgemaking within professional organizations. In conclusion, I suggest that design of communication researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners might contribute to local communities by strengthening communication infrastructures through similar kinds of research work, and that this kind of contribution can reflexively instruct us in how professional communicators work to learn in a networked environment.

An Embedded Classroom-Based Case Study of Multimodal Discourse Because it is difficult to see collaborative knowledge making within a digital composing process, I focused on three main objects of inquiry for the current study: moments of collaboration participants engaged in, modes they utilized during collaboration, and technologies they utilized. My goal was to assemble these research components into an “embedded case study” of each student team’s composing process, as Yin (2009) defines it: a case study that contains multiple units of analysis (p. 50). In addition, Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

35

these objects have important precedents in writing process and digital composing literature. Knievel (2008), for instance, has demonstrated the problems with approaching collaboration with a consensus-based model in mind, advocating instead a messier, more grounded approach to collaborative writing research. Noël and Robert (2004) have made similar claims, arguing that we should not approach empirical studies of collaborative writing with a priori models of successful collaboration that blind us to new ones. A variety of researchers have also demonstrated that multimodal communication, in particular, complicates collaboration processes by introducing new components into these processes, components which inevitably result in new forms of interaction between communicators, modes, technologies, and genres (e.g. Graham & Whalen, 2008; Hull & Nelson, 2005; Jones, 2008; Ranker, 2008). Thanks to Kressian models of multimodal discourse, however, digital composing researchers have mostly focused on how various modes of expression (e.g., text, video, image, hypertext) become resources for meaning-making within specific writing situations, rather than focusing on the complex social situations in which these modes are mobilized (e.g., Bezemer & Kress, 2008). As Prior (2005) contended, however, these studies have largely relied on a structuralist model of meaning-making that is potentially problematic as a framework for empirical study. In line with this critique, Prior et al. (2009) argued for a mediated and dialogic approach to multimodal communication, an approach envisioning communication as “distributed over time and space and among people, artifacts, and environments and thus also laminated, as multiple frames or fields coexist in any situated act” (p. 18, emphasis removed). In this vein, empirical studies that focus on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are better precedents for the current study, as they typically contextualize how technology usage is impacted by, and impacts, broader infrastructure (e.g., Slattery, 2007; Whittemore, 2007; Potts, 2009; Spinuzzi, 2009).2 In order to build a case study of knowledge-making processes behind student digital composing that foregrounds the kind of

36

Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

systems-based thinking Prior argues for, I also employed a methodological approach known as Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA). According to O’Halloran (2011), SF-MDA involves the cross-examination of multiple modes of communication situated in their social contexts. It is predicated on the theory that a given mode of communication affects the delivery of a particular message, even if the same content is represented in different modes. Derived from Halliday (1978) and his theory of social semiotics, SF-MDA focuses on how communicators make meaning via a variety of distinct modes, with a mode defined, as Bezemer and Kress (2008) argued, as a semiotic resource used for the purposes of representing meaning within a specific communication situation (p. 171). So, at the same time that SF-MDA admittedly begins with a Kressian definition for modes, by cross-referencing multiple modes of communication and how they are impacted by, and impact, the specific social context they are deployed in, SF-MDA lends itself to a more grounded approach to communication, an approach that focuses as much on social systems as on individual modes, as I have claimed elsewhere (Getto & Silva, 2012). Evidence of networked student knowledge making was thus collected and analyzed in a holistic and contextualized fashion in order to ensure modes, technologies, and moments of collaboration were understood as part-and-parcel of the broader communication situation, and thus that the case study of each student team preserved this complexity. I did this by videotaping student interactions so that I could analyze moments of collaboration, technology usage, and the deployment of modes at a granular level, and by collecting documents and preserving them in their original forms for analysis (e.g., HTML, Word, iMovie asset, etc.). At the same time, this methodology risked data overload—a problem common to strongly-descriptive qualitative studies—as each student team’s writing process was exceedingly complex when observed at a moment-to-moment level. To compensate for this, and because this was teacher research, I negotiated appropriate moments of data collection and observational guidelines with participants before I began data collection, first by conducting a pilot study with a previous class that helped me

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understand what moments of data collection were feasible, and then by negotiating moments of data collection with actual participants. Beyond best practices in teacher research, such as those articulated by Ray (1993), this collaborative approach also stems from best practices in ethnographies of writing, such as those articulated by Cushman and Monberg (1998), Horner (2002), and Brown and Dobrin (2004). Encouraging researchers to focus not only on collaboration within and reflection about participant discourses, these thinkers also emphasize how material conditions impact the researcher-participant relationship and, as a result, the usefulness of the knowledge derived from the study. In other words, my guidelines for observation and data collection were wrought through rhetorical knowledge making with participants, as Ray (1993) would have it, because I thought this was the best way to understand participant communication practices (p. 146). Because I had power over student participants, I foregrounded a different ethos when I turned the camera on. Besides documenting informed consent and class policies indicating that nothing observed during research could affect student grades, I also was careful to work with student schedules as though they were any other kind of participant, and to remind student participants that my observations of them were entirely optional and dependent on their continuing consent to allow me to film their composing lives beyond the classroom. This complex, iterative design of the study in response to the above exigencies resulted in the following moments of data collection and observational guidelines:

Data Collected

38

ƒ

Video-taped interviews with individual students before they had completed any team-based work

ƒ

Video-taped observations of student collaborative composing sessions and meetings with clients

ƒ

Final projects and process documents students produced along the way —resulting in forty-four total written documents collected, which ranged from word processor documents to HTML and iMovie files

Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

ƒ

Short, informal interviews during observation if I was unclear on what I was seeing

ƒ

A group interview with each student team and their client at the end of the semester, during which I also performed a member check by presenting some edited footage depicting patterns I’d noticed during initial data analysis—approximately thirty total hours of video footage were collected, one quarter of which consisted of initial student interviews before projects began

Observed Groups ƒ

Team 4-H consisted of four students—Kirk, Shalin, Emily, and Alex—who were tasked with producing a simple, but interactive website for Dave, a local non-profit leader who ran the 4-H Mentoring Initiative.3 Kirk, Shalin, and Alex had a working knowledge of web design, while Emily described herself as a very proficient web user. I observed this team collaboratively composing and meeting with their client five times for approximately ninety minutes each time over the course of a semester.

ƒ

Team Eric consisted of three students—Ivory, Val, and Courtney—who were tasked with producing a digital video for Eric, a local art teacher who was interested in showcasing his innovative art projects for other teachers. I observed this team collaboratively composing and meeting with their client eight times for approximately ninety minutes each time over the course of a semester.

Observational Guidelines Because I was most interested in the social system within which modes, technologies, and collaborative activities were deployed, my focus during any given moment of observation was social interaction. While making sure to document all modes and technologies students utilized during composing, as well as when and how they utilized them, the camera was most frequently pointed at students themselves, in order to record the rich and complex degree of social interplay that occurred during composing and collaboration.

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Data analysis was also rhetorical and iterative. Early into my analysis, I realized that the initial objects of inquiry (modes, technologies, and moments of collaboration) were too broad to become final tags for coding. After coding my first snippet of data, I began to differentiate these original tags into several sub-sets depicted below. After completing analysis of all observational data in this manner, I triangulated patterns that emerged within composing behaviors with patterns in written texts and interviews, mostly by selecting key vignettes from observational footage and trying to make sense of how vignettes compared to interview footage and written products. Through this triangulation, plus member checks conducted during final interviews, knowledge work as communicative action slowly emerged. Figure 1. Tags for of all coded video data Name of tag

# counted in all video data

% of total tags

Tag

#

%

Prod: MentM

184

19

Col: Sugg

199

21

Prod: MentT

116

12

Col: Quest

78

8

Prod: UseM

23

2

Col: Delib

225

23

Prod: UseT

48

5

Col: Util

52

5

Total

371

39

Total

554

58

Grand total

922

Table Key Prod: MentM: students mentioned a mode during their production process Prod: MentT: students mentioned a technology during production Prod: UseM: students made use of a mode during production

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Prod: UseT: students used a technology during production Col: Sugg: a student made a suggestion regarding the project Col: Quest: a student asked a question that was actually a tacit suggestion Col: Delib: a student deliberated with another student by challenging the suggestion of another student Col: Util: a student utilized a suggestion from another student or their client As students leveraged meaning-making resources through their team networks in response to client needs, in other words— networks embedded in a larger communication infrastructure—the systemic function of their composing behavior began to emerge. This systemic function is best described as the mobilization of different types of knowledge to produce a digital product useful to their clients. To track this transition from communicative action to communication genre, my analysis had to tie together past knowledge, present knowledge, collaborative behavior, technology usage, usage of modes, and products produced. What follows is an accounting of some of the most important aspects of this student knowledge work, with a focus on how students transitioned from past knowledge to present product.

Many Knowledges and Networks—One Communication Infrastructure Student participants were placed in a complex communication situation, a situation that impacted, and was impacted by, the available communication infrastructure at Michigan State University and their clients’ organizations. One team’s client, Eric, requested a high-quality digital video of his art students doing a variety of projects that would serve as a showcase to inspire other art teachers as well as material for documentary contests. The other team’s client, Dave, wanted a simple, but interactive website for his mentoring initiative that would enable mentors, mentees, and prospective mentors and mentees, to get up-to-the-minute social media updates. Because of this complexity, and because I thought it

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was an essential professional practice, I helped students form teams with one another, teams that would function as composing networks. From their inception, I foregrounded knowledge as the main tie binding these networks by encouraging students to prioritize which clients for the class they wanted to work with based on which skill sets the partners were looking for, and also by making individual placement decisions based on the sum total of skill sets within prospective student teams. I did this by assigning a “Student Learning Goals Worksheet,” which invited students to take inventory of their technological, writing/research, and social skill sets, and to track their progress in learning new skill sets over the course of the semester (see Appendix A). This worksheet, assigned in conjunction with the first major assignment in the course—a reflective essay on literacies, technologies, and citizenship—would become a benchmark for me to form teams for the third major assignment in the course, the “Community Media Remix” (see Appendix B). My pedagogical goal throughout the class was to encourage students to engage in what Spinuzzi (2008) called net work, a term that involves the assembly of people and technological components and that attempts to describe the way this work is “enacted, maintained, extended, and transformed; the ways in which knowledge work is strategically and tactically performed in a heavily networked organization” (p. 25). In this case, the simulated ‘heavily networked organization’ was the class itself, as well as the elements of MSU infrastructure and partner organizations that supported the class. Compared to knowledge-based networks, a communication infrastructure can be defined as the total system of available individuals, sites, networks, modes, genres, knowledges, technologies, and materials, given a particular communication situation, a system that, for Star and Ruhleder (1996) “emerges for people in practice, connected to activities and structures” (p. 112). A communication infrastructure is composed of all the elements that enable communicative work, in other words, including, according to Grabill (2007), standards/conventions, cultural and communal practices, identities, and diverse purposes and needs, as 42

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well as more technological and structural elements such as hardwired networks, technologies, and information systems (p. 40). Individual student participants could be described as working within their specific networks—nicknamed Team Eric and Team 4H within the class—networks that were nested within the total system of available communication resources at MSU and client organizations.4 Through observing and analyzing how participants leveraged certain infrastructural elements during their networked composing work, I would ascertain two important findings: 1. Students leveraged specific and identifiable types of knowledge throughout their composing processes in response to this complex communication situation. 2. They did so by making connections between types of knowledge that they had accumulated through past experiences with various modes, technologies, and genres, and new knowledge invented in response to the demands of the current situation. This student knowledge work, I argue below, can teach us something about how communicators use knowledge during digital composing, especially communicators who must master a significant learning curve during communication work. Student participants used knowledge as a form of communicative action in response to the demands placed on them, in other words. They mobilized past knowledge and invented new knowledge in order to assemble modes, technologies, and genres into products that met the communication needs of their clients.

Mobilizing and Inventing Communicative Knowledge Student participants entered the research situation with a panoply of knowledges regarding communication technologies, modes, and genres. Though each participant professed a different comfort level with specific resources, each participant was fluent in enough forms of digital communication not to be intimidated by complex tasks like image manipulation, HTML coding, digital video capture, and digital video editing. Throughout interviews, in fact, students displayed an intuitive understanding of complex digital

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composing tasks, an understanding that appeared very mundane to them. In the words of Emily, the self-professed least-skilled member of her respective team (Team 4-H): E: For publishing things like Powerpoint and stuff I was never taught how to do it. I just did it. Like… just… easy… Me: You just tried it out? E: Yeah, because we had to do it for some class but I neverno one ever like walked me through it because it’s just so basic. All students interviewed made similar claims about technology: it was something they could adapt to their needs. Participants had no delusions about tasks they were not capable of doing at their current level of expertise, but they felt confident enough that, given time and effort, they could learn just about any communication technology, mode, or genre. Such confidence with communication, in addition to the brief histories of technology usage I was able to elicit through interviews, exemplifies a collective repertoire of communicative knowledge for each group dating back years and including longterm immersion with the newest available consumer-grade software, hardware, and devices. These were students who had never wanted for access to technologies they valued, in other words, but for whom levels of familiarity with particular technologies varied significantly. This most likely explains why out of all observed composing sessions and meetings with clients, student interactions were tagged for discussion of technology only 12% of the time, and were tagged for the use of a new technology only 5% of the time. 20% of the time, in comparison, interactions were tagged for discussion of a mode, and if we compare discussion tags to usage tags: students spent nearly five times as much time discussing modes and technologies as they did using them. This makes sense when we think of student participants as reasonably proficient communicators who have confidence in their technological abilities. At the same time, however, students were asked to negotiate a complex rhetorical situation that heavily

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involved a communication infrastructure they were relatively unfamiliar with. Without replicating the analysis of MSU’s available infrastructure by Devoss, Cushman, and Grabill (2005), allow me to summarize some of the key components of this infrastructure that concerns the current discussion: ƒ

Individual user-communicators and knowledges: myself, students enrolled in the course, and clients; respective past individual knowledges (modal, technological, generic); individual purposes, value systems, etc.; knowledges embodied by the course itself, which included the availability of and methods of accessing campus computer labs, the MSU wireless network, and the digital video cameras mentioned below; the course’s curriculum and attendant learning goals, homework assignments, major writing assignments, key terms, etc.; preliminary audiences for student projects identified by community partners before the course began.

ƒ

Networks: the class itself; student teams; client organizations – a mentoring initiative within a local 4H chapter and several grade levels of art classes within a local elementary school; the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures department at MSU and its attendant standards, requirements, and resources (including digital video cameras available for students to check out).

ƒ

Sites: computer labs in the MSU library that included a networked computer, a Smartboard, and some software; the classroom the course was taught in, which included a wireless Internet connection, and a technology podium and overhead projector; student dorm rooms that included wireless Internet; other locations on campus that students used to meet with their clients, such as a student eatery, all of which were wireless hotspots; Eric’s art classroom in Okemos Elementary School that included a networked computer and digital video camera as well as Eric’s personal laptop.

ƒ

Technologies: students’ laptops and installed software, including Dreamweaver and iMovie; the MSU wireless network and a variety of web applications and resources accessible from it (including open source web templates, royalty free music files, and best practices for composing in a variety of digital

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genres); Eric’s personal digital video camera and other devices available through the WRAC department, mentioned above. Within this larger infrastructural framework, student participants would make hundreds of small, moment-to-moment decisions that moved their project in many directions at once, but overall there was a progression toward a finished product, a genre recognizable to both student teams and their clients. Their knowledge work within this infrastructure in many ways resembled the work Spinuzzi (2008) observed during his study of a telecommunications firm. As he summarized, this work is: “deeply interpenetrated, deeply rhizomatic it has multiple, multidirectional information flows. Yes, work may resemble a process… But within the black box, work is performed by assemblages of workers and technologies, assemblages that may not be stable from one incident to the next and in which work may not follow predictable or circumscribed paths” (p. 137). Likewise, student communicative paths through this infrastructure involved the messy assembly, often through trial and error, of technologies defined as tools used for the production of their projects, as Selber (2004) would have it (p. 40). Further, students assembled technologies by mobilizing past knowledge and inventing new knowledge in response to the demands of the current communication situation, as two of the members of Team Eric did during their initial meeting with their client:5 Courtney: We were gonna do the music and everything—we just wanted to showcase it in kind of more an organized way or do you want it like less organized? Eric: That’s a good one…[looks at camera] You waiting for an answer? [everyone laughs] E: I have to think on it…I think that’s kind of cool. Then we can just make up like the little icons like on movies, we’ll have like first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. And they can just click on that movie and go to it. We’ll do that like in iDVD— C: Like the different chapters—

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E: Uh-huh. C: So it will like play through anyways but you’ll have, if you want to scene select you can like kind of do that [to Val] Can we do that? I mean, I don’t know… V: Yeah, depending on what, like, editing thing you can make it in like a DVD format. Did you want it on like Youtube? Did you want us to like upload it to Youtube? E: Probably, yeah. Probably do that kind of thing… You both—you’re going to use a Mac for this? C: Yeah. We’re going to. V: Who did you want to see—like, who did you want to be able to see this video? E: Anybody. V: Anybody? E: Yeah, we’ll make it for Youtube, then Channel 21. It’ll be Bob who does our broadcasting— V: Like for Lansing Public Access? C: It’s like the local broadcasting? E: Yep! And then he’ll put it up on TV for like fillers between his shows and stuff. In the above exchange, students mention tools for producing a video such as Youtube, Macintosh computers, editing software, and iDVD. More importantly, however, they display past knowledge regarding several of these technologies—such as Val, who is aware of how to produce a digital video in DVD format. Students also can be seen here mobilizing this knowledge to meet the demands of the current communication situation, such as when Courtney asks Eric to describe the generic requirements of the video at the beginning of the exchange. Further, student communicative action involved defining, categorizing, and ultimately assembling various modes of

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communication, or as Bezemer and Kress (2008) defined them: resources for making meaning (p. 171). These resources were conceptualized by students as the basic building-blocks of their specific projects, or as the smallest units of meaning that could be manipulated. These modes were also highly dependent not only on past student knowledge of similar communication situations, but also on the identified genre students were composing toward, as exemplified by the following exchange during Team 4-H’s presentation of their initial website draft to their client: Shalin: This is our website that we made. Alex: A mock-up… The links, the top thing doesn’t work yet, because, y’know… Nothing works really yet, just because we wanted to show you the basic layout we have so far. Well, it’s pretty simple… Dave: That’s what I need, pretty simple. A: Yeah, I don’t know what else to add to it— D: So, you know, as long as you got those-yep, you got all headers there I was looking at. A: And like, for the, uh, those buttons, those really wouldn’t be…I feel like there’s a different way to do it so that you could integrate the actual statuses from Facebook and Twitter there. So those are just kind of like placeholders. D: Gotcha. I like that. S: Especially Twitter, I know you can have like a running feed or whatever. D: Sure. Sure. A: And that would definitely be easier to maintain because then you’re just typing news into Twitter and Facebook than editing this. In this case, Facebook and Twitter updates were tagged as modes because they were treated as basic resources for making meaning within the social media-infused website students were creating. Alex mentions the ‘actual statuses’ that viewers of the website 48

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would see as opposed to Facebook and Twitter, the tools for delivering those statuses to the website and its audience. Here he is displaying both a past knowledge of the ways users navigate social media websites, and is addressing this knowledge to Dave’s need to update website visitors from the site’s landing page. This probabilistic form of knowledge-making indicates that students were leveraging what Lee (2007), following several others, has called “perceived affordances,” a term grounded in the belief that “text-making practices are not determined by what the resources naturally offer but are shaped by how people perceive what various representational resources can or cannot do for them” (p. 227). In each team’s process, in other words, there was significant evidence that students were using their perception of available resources within the broader communication infrastructure to mobilize specific resources in relation to their client’s needs. There was a constant tension between infrastructural, communicative, and moment-to-moment demands that participants navigated with surprising fluency.

Iterating Toward Genres Each observed composing session, discussion, and product produced revealed complex moments of collaboration, meaningmaking, and tool usage, but as students mobilized past knowledge in order to assemble modes and technologies at a moment-tomoment level, they also began to classify these assemblages as recognizable genres. Alex’s process document from Project #3 exemplifies this process (see Appendix C for full document): At first my group thought that the first template we had chosen was the best in terms of usability and looks. But after getting accustomed to it, it was found to be complicated and not user-friendly. Specifically, the navigation from page to page was a little confusing to set up. There was a navigation bar on top, a navigation drop bar on top, and then another navigation section on the left. The way the example was presented had different things in each navigation area, but I don't think that would have worked with Dave's preference for simplicity.

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As Devitt (2004) contended, such a rhizomatic composing process is an argument for a more situational consideration of genre. As she argues: people construct genre through situation and situation through genre; their relationship is reciprocal and dynamic. If genre responds to recurring situation, then a particular text’s reflection of genre reflects that genre’s situation. Thus the act of constructing the genre—of classifying a text as similar to other texts—is also the act of constructing the situation. (p. 21) I saw evidence of student knowledge-making, in other words, when students made communicative choices by using technologies to assemble modes into genres, choices that were responsive to their growing understanding of the type of digital project they were working on and the social networks and overall communication situation they saw that project as part of. All told, each team would assemble a sizable amount of resources in service of their projects: ƒ

Modes and technologies Team Eric utilized during the composition of their “Mini-documentary” o Modes: Shots, camera angles, video footage, transitions, audio snippets, snippets of iTunes songs, snippets of royalty-free songs, photographs of art projects, text. o Technologies: iMovie, iTunes, Eric’s video camera, WRAC video camera, library computer labs with Smartboards, various websites such as those that made royalty-free music available, individual student laptops, wired and wireless Internet connections.

ƒ

Modes and technologies Team 4-H utilized during the composition of their “Splash page” o Modes: Tweets, hyperlinks, text, colors, the 4-H logo, the 4-H Mentoring Initiative mission statement. o Technologies: HTML, open-source website templates that were available for download, Dreamweaver, Twitter, library computer labs with Smartboards, various websites

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such as those that made free website templates available for download, individual student laptops, wired and wireless Internet connections. Certainly, there were a variety of other resources students encountered and considered while composing within the broader infrastructure of MSU and their clients’ organizations, but the above were the resources that stuck, that became tools to produce— or components of—their final genres (see Appendix D for final versions of these genres). Again, this knowledge-making and resource-assemblage was iterative and rhizomatic, or was filled with stops and starts, setbacks, decisions that led to failure, and the inclusion and exclusion of various resources. Technological, modal, and generic affordances were perceived simultaneously by student teams, in other words, though often by different individual members at different times. During composing sessions with Team 4-H, for instance, all four members were most often engaged in some kind of related but separate activity, activities that ranged from revising HTML code in order to alter an open source web template to Googling technological problems they were encountering to making over-the-shoulder suggestions while someone else composed. 4-H also engaged in significant asynchronous forms of coordination by frequently communicating over e-mail between meetings. At their first real composing session outside class, as Alex’s above process document exemplifies, the team developed and classified one mock-up as meeting generic specifications for their client’s simple website or “splash page,” only to later throw out this mockup. Using the knowledge gleaned from this composing session, Alex, the identified communications person of the group—or person charged with being the liaison between the team and their client—would throw together another mockup based on another template he found while browsing the Internet, seeking group approval only after he had something to show the rest of the team. With minor refinements wrought through meetings with their client, Dave—who preferred a very hands-off approach to the project—and the composing of a sustainability guide to aid their client in publishing and maintaining the site, Team 4-H’s

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composing process reached its climax with Alex’s design of that second mock-up, a mock-up that would strongly determine their final design (see Appendix F for student sustainability guides). Like Team 4-H’s workflow, Team Eric’s composing process was similarly messy, but Team Eric’s knowledge work was also very different in its overall shape of iteration. Team Eric’s process was less coordinated and more collaborative, for instance, by which I mean that Team Eric worked together more, often in the same room, and work was shared more evenly. They relied less on e-mail and other asynchronous forms of communication, and instead preferred to talk in class or with Eric in person. They also typically focused on one process at a time, as a group, rather than breaking off into a lot of different tasks. This probably had much to do with the fact that their identified genre was a “mini-documentary” which required them to shoot several hours of footage of Eric’s art classroom. Probably also because of this form of primary interaction, they discussed the project with their client more often and elicited more feedback from him. In addition, the modes, technologies, and generic elements they composed with were radically different than those used by Team 4H, and required a prolonged period of capturing, uploading, editing, and exporting/rendering digital video and photographs. In two composing sessions, the team created a rough draft of their project that they felt met Eric’s needs and wants. They showed it to him and he had few suggestions. Despite this, team members asked him several follow-up questions about where to go next. This is the pattern that would continue for the remainder of this group’s composing process: students utilized Eric’s knowledge of digital video and his preferences as a resource that they mobilized in relation to other resources they found, including Val’s understanding of video production from her experience producing videos for public broadcasting in high school, and the knowledge that Courtney and Ivory possessed concerning iMovie, a technology Val had never used. Given these overall similar, but in many ways dissimilar, communicative paths through the same basic infrastructure, it is arguable that as networks of communicators do work, leveraging available resources in order to accomplish specific communicative 52

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tasks, this communicative action affects infrastructures in various ways, sometimes making interconnections between resources within an infrastructure stronger or weaker depending on how these resources are leveraged. It is also interesting that student net work, as depicted above, though admittedly more weakly linked than more engaged and durable forms of net work, roughly followed the same workflow patterns of professional communicators working in industry, such as those Spinuzzi (2008) studied. This seems to imply, as I mention in closing below, that placing students and other communicators who need to work-tolearn through a complex communication task into relatively loosely-structured social networks, networks where communicators are forced to find their own path through available infrastructure, may be the best way to kick-start innovation and invention.

Implications and Future Research Directions Student participants successfully navigated a communicatively, technologically, and infrastructurally complex situation, in that they produced projects that met or even exceeded the expectations of their clients. They did this by leveraging past knowledge, as well as modes, technologies, and genres to meet the demands of the current communication situation. Further, this limited, classroombased case study implies that a situated understanding of how to assemble knowledges for the effective design of communication within a given communication infrastructure may be more important than access to the most cutting-edge modes and technologies, especially when working with resource-poor organizational clients. It also indicates that it is difficult to account for the types of learning resources students and other pre-professionals will need from moment to moment. The students studied displayed a high aptitude for this type of knowledge work, and a willingness to work hard to make connections between past knowledge and knowledge required within the communication situation I placed them in. One question this study raises is what would happen if the opposite were true: would pre-professional communicators who were not as motivated to succeed rise to the occasion in such a loosely-structured environment? Or would they require more

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direct instruction in how to manage their workflow? Such questions seem to call for an ethically dubious empirical study of student failure, a study that would be as difficult to scaffold as it would be to conduct in good faith, given the ethics of teacher research. Instead, I have turned to organizational studies of clients who partner with my service-learning classes. When I originally began the above study, I was very concerned with the impacts student knowledge-making would have on client organizational infrastructures. Would these infrastructures be improved through student communicative action? Or would clients just become dependent on outside help? I quickly discovered that the data collection requirements of studying a complex student-client communication workflow made it impossible to focus simultaneously on workflow taking place within student teams and client organizations, however. In order to answer these and other questions, I have begun case studies on several organizational clients – at time of writing these include a science research center and museum that has asked for help with content strategy for their website, and a technical writing firm that maintains a free, wikibased warehouse of technical documentation and has asked students to create documentation for repairing broken devices. It is my hope that these case studies, which utilize the same basic methodology for data collection and analysis, will teach me as much about successful networked knowledge-making as they will about why a given project does or doesn’t succeed. Anecdotally, the majority of knowledge-intensive service-learning projects I have completed over the years have been at least moderately successful, resulting in positive impacts on client knowledge of the specific genres students worked in, and longerterm opportunities for collaboration between myself, future students, and the organization. A minority of the time, projects seemed to fall flat and were completely rejected by client organizations. If I could make an educated guess as to the main mitigating factor affecting the relative success or failure of a knowledge product, and its attendant knowledge-making process, I think it has something to do with the strength of connection between student knowledge-making practices and those taking

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place within client organizations. My hypothesis, going into these organizational studies, is that when these knowledge-making practices closely mirror each other student projects will have more impact, and that projects will have less impact when practices are strongly dissimilar. In any case, my focus remains on networked knowledges themselves, rather than on the modes and technologies communicators utilize via these knowledges. Based on the above findings and my anecdotal experiences teaching knowledge work as a form of service learning, from courses in introductory composition to web authoring to technical writing, I have come to believe that knowledge itself is one of the most important, if not the most important, resource for effective communication design. Though I do not have empirical findings on student or client knowledge-making failure, yet, my experiences with the occasional, and probably inevitable, failures both within student teams and between teams and their clients seem to have less to do with basic modal or technological proficiency than they do with communicators’ conceptualization of the entire situation. When communicators understand the purpose, audience, and overall context for a given knowledge-making practice and product, they are much more likely to be motivated to learn any proficiencies required for effectiveness. I’ve learned from my students and clients, in other words, that it’s important not to put basic proficiencies before overall knowledge context when teaching effective communication design.

Works Cited Bay, J. (2010). Networking pedagogies for professional writing students. The Writing Instructor. Retrieved May 1, 2010, from http://www.writinginstructor.com/bay. Bezemer, J. and Kress, G. (2008). Writing in multimodal texts: A social semiotic account of designs for learning. Written Communication, 25.2, 166-195. Brandt, D. (2005). Writing for a living: Literacy and the knowledge economy. Written Communication, 22, 166-197.

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Brown, S. and Dobrin, S. (2004). Ethnography unbound: From theory shock to critical praxis. Albany: State University of New York Press. Cushman, E. and Guinsatao Monberg (1998). T. Re-centering authority: Social reflexivity and re-positioning in composition research. In Farris, C. and Anson, C., eds., Under construction: Working at the intersections of composition theory, research, and practice (166-80). Logan: Utah State University Press. Devitt, A. (2004). Writing genres. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. DeVoss, D., Cushman, E., and Grabill, J. (2005). Infrastructure and composing: The when of new media writing. College Composition and Communication, 57, 14-44. Getto, G. and Silva, M. (2012). Doing multimodal research the easy way: A workflow for making sense of technologically complex communication situations. Proceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on design of communication, 89-94. Grabill, J. (2007). Writing community change: Designing technologies for citizen action. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Graham, S. and Whalen, B. (2008). Mode, medium, and genre: A case study of decisions in new-media design. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 22, 65-91. Halliday, M. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press. Horner, B. (2002). Critical ethnography, ethics, and work: Rearticulating labor. JAC, 22, 561-84. Hull, G. and Nelson, M. (2005). Locating the semiotic power of multimodality. Written Communication, 22, 224-261. Jones, J. (2008). Patterns of revision in online writing: A study of Wikipedia’s featured articles. Written Communication, 25, 262289. Knievel, Michael. (2008). Police reform, task force rhetoric, and traces of dissent: Rethinking consensus-as-outcome in collaborative writing situations.Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 38, 331-62. Lee, C. (2007). Affordances and text-making practices in online instant messaging. Written Communication, 24, 223-49.

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Noël, S. and Robert, J-M. (2004). Empirical study on collaborative writing: What do co-authors do, use, and like. Computer Supported Collaborative Work, 13, 63-89. O'Halloran, K. (2011). Multimodal discourse analysis. In Hyland, K. et al., eds. Continuum companion to discourse analysis (120137). New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Potts, L. (2009). Using actor network theory to trace and improve multimodal communication design. Technical Communication Quarterly, 18, 281-301. Prior, P. (2005). Moving multimodality beyond the binaries: A response to Gunther Kress's ‘gains and losses.’ Computers and Composition, 22, 23-30. Prior, P., Solberg, J., Berry, P., Bellwoar, H., Chewning, B., Lunsford, K., Rohan, L., Roozen, K., Sheridan-Rabideau, M., Shipka, J., Van Ittersum, D., and Walker, J. (2009). Re-situating and re-mediating the canons: A cultural-historical remapping of rhetorical activity. Kairos, 11. Retrieved June 25, 2013, from http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/11.3/binder.html?topoi/prioret-al/index.html. Ranker, J. (2008). Composing across multiple media: A case study of digital video production in a fifth grade classroom. Written Communication, 25, 196-234. Ray, R. (1993). The practice of theory: Teacher research in composition. Urbana, IL: NCTE. Selber, S. (2004). Multiliteracies for a digital age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Slattery, S. (2007). Undistributing work through writing: How technical communicators manage texts in complex information environments. Technical Communication Quarterly, 16, 311-325. Spinuzzi, C. (2007). Guest editor's introduction: Technical communication in the age of distributed work. Technical Communication Quarterly, 16, 275-277. Spinuzzi, C. (2008). Network: Theorizing knowledge work in telecommunications. New York: Cambridge University Press. Spinuzzi, Clay. (2009). Compound mediation in software development: Using genre ecologies to study textual artifacts. Writing Selves/Writing Societies. Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http://wac.colostate.edu/books/selves_societies/.

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Star, S. and Ruhleder, K. (1996). Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: Design and access for large information spaces. Information Systems Research, 7, 111–134. Yin, R. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks CA: SAGE. Whittemore, S. (2007). Metadata and memory: Lessons from the canon of memoria for the design of content management systems. Technical Communication Quarterly, 17, 88-109.

End Notes 1

Though listed as a composition course, the creators of the course—including myself and some colleagues at Michigan State University—designed it to be a feeder for our department’s Professional Writing program, and thus to meet the composition program’s requirements by introducing students to genres favored in professional writing, such as an impact/needs assessment that included qualitative research of a given client organization’s target audience, high-quality digital projects, and documentation on how to maintain the digital projects students created. More about the course itself can be found here: https://www.msu.edu/~rivaitje/WRA135Video1stDayS10.mov.

2 It should be noted that Graham and Whalen (2008) are a notable exception to this as researchers who focused mostly on mode and genre but also foregrounded the complexity of the situation they were investigating. 3

During the consent process, all participants indicated they wanted their real first names used as identifiers in write-ups.

4 For a complete analysis of MSU’s infrastructure, see Devoss, Cushman, and Grabill (2005). 5

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The third member, Ivory, had a scheduling conflict and wasn’t available to attend the first meeting.

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Column: Technical Writers @ Lisbon Manuela Aparicio University Institute of Lisbon [email protected] EuroSIGDOC, the SIGDOC European Chapter, has promoted workshops and conferences since 2010 in Europe. These events bring together researchers, academia and industry, focused on information systems, design communication, documentation and open source. EuroSIGDOC organizes regular technical writers’ meetups, giving an opportunity for technical writers to share experiences and best practices. The proposed meetups have the objective for professionals to become conscious of others, learn with each other in order to become better technical writers, communicators, speakers, illustrators, researchers, teachers and students. These meetings born as informal coffee gathering and became regular once a month meetings. In the first formal meetup, participants were able to attend four presentations: the first one on design of communication; the second presentation on a case of an enterprise that provides software for contact centres; thirdly a presentation by a technical translator and reviser in multilingual project management that works for a company of global solutions in content lifecycle management; the fourth presentation was made by a technical writer of a business that provides the market with solutions for the development and management of custom enterprise web and mobile applications. By the end of the presentations, the attendees were able to ask questions on the presenters experience and also provided written feedback on the meetup [http://eurosigdoc.acm.org/twl/twlreport.pdf]. The last event, on October 26th, was the second formal technical writing meet up at Lisbon. The sessions on technical writing were very exciting. The first presenter gave a real perspective on how the document life cycle was managed on a daily base. There were mentioned the various tools and methodology for the Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

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documentation analysis, creation and modification as well as the review and delivery process. That company has customers from the transport industry and accomplishes a collaborative work in technical writing in order to improve documentation content. The second speaker gave a really good approach to Simplified Technical English (STE), illustrating with words examples. This speaker also provided some best practices of what to put in a style sheet of STE. The third presenter illustrated how documentation could be done within an organization that only has one technical writer. It was also presented the different open source software used to perform work in the security software enterprise. In each talk, the audience was participative posing questions and making suggestions. Overall this third Technical Writers @ Lisbon, sponsored by EuroSIGDOC, was very well organized thanks to the commitment of Joaquim Baptista and Carlos J. Costa at ISCTE-IUL.

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Book review Jack Hennes St. Cloud State University [email protected]

Rhetorical Accessability: At the Intersection of Technical Communication and Disability Studies. Edited by Lisa Meloncon. Amityville, New York: Baywood, 2013. 247 pp. Meloncon’s Rhetorical Accessability explores the connections between critical work in disability studies and technical communication. The first collection of its kind, included essays combine theory and practice to emphasize the value of placing disability studies at the forefront of design, workplace practices, and pedagogies. Echoing the diversity of scholarship that has contributed to this emerging area of study—from disability studies, technical communication, rhetoric, and literacy studies— the collection emphasizes technical communication as a crucial multidisciplinary ground for critical discourse regarding disability and accessibility. As a whole, Meloncon’s collection initiates a broader scholarly conversation centered on issues of accessibility in various technical communication contexts. The World Wide Web presents a landscape where interfaces, technologies, and new media tools work to exclude a growing number of users with disabilities, making the timing of Meloncon’s collection more than opportune. As there is no other collection of essays that seeks to identify where the lenses of technical communication and disability studies overlap, Rhetorical Accessability can only be compared to individual calls to further research in this crucial area (Oswal, 2013; Palmeri, 2006; Salvo, 2005; Walters, 2010). As digital technologies continue to evolve at a rapid pace, however, the design processes of these technologies must account for accessibility. The material practice of developing accessible technologies cannot reside outside the social, cultural, and political forces that shape and are amplified by technical communication. The essays in this collection respond to this

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concern and revolve around four broad areas – design, discourse, pedagogy, and policy – that encompass important intersections between technical communication and disability studies. In this review, I examine each of these essays to not only to trace current approaches to this area of inquiry, but also to highlight the potential contribution of this collection to future directions in research and practice. In “Embracing Interdependence: Technology Developers, Autistic Users, and Technical Communicators,” Elmore responds to gaps in user experience research that have resulted in the exclusion of autistic persons from design processes. Web-based applications designed specifically for autistic users can be developed and distributed with relative ease. While the development of assistive technologies for autism have included autistic persons in the testing of prototypes, Elmore argues that these users must be thoroughly involved in the full design process of technologies geared toward them. Including autistic persons in this process can both help these users engage with assistive technologies and can help designers identify areas for innovation. While Elmore interrogates a specific technologically-mediated context, Jarrett, Redish, and Summers point to more general design concerns in “Designing for People Who Do Not Read Easily.” Jarrett et al. identify four research methodologies that have informed our understanding of the problems readers face in the semiotic domain. These methodologies, however, represent work done both inside and outside of universities and reflect the influence of social/political and cultural forces in shaping research paradigms. Their Design to Read project seeks to unify researchers and practitioners and cross borders erected by current research traditions, in turn seeking to build bridges to readers with visual impairments. Based in their research findings, Jarrett et al. present a number of recommendations for designers to ensure readability of text on the web, emphasizing that changes made to respond to cognitive, emotional, and physical challenges that readers face inevitably aid all readers. Moving from design to theory, Meloncon envisions how technological embodiment presents opportunities for enhancing theories of technical communication. The work of body studies 62

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frames Meloncon’s approach to an emerging yet nomadic area of scholarship intersecting post-humanism and technical communication. Using Merleau-Ponty’s (1962/2002) notion of embodiment, Meloncon provides a post-human view of the technical communicator as “a malleable body that can be remade through [...] the manifestation of a complex user” (p. 68). In presenting contextual examples of audience analysis, Meloncon solidifies theoretical conversations poised to shape how technological embodiments shift our perceptions of bodies, technologies, and practice, helping form a body for technical communication itself. Once we understand that we are all technologically embodied, we “ensure that we more consciously, directly, and ethically orient ourselves in ways that make sure people with disabilities are granted more accessibility” (p. 79). In “Supercrips Don’t Fly: Technical Communication to Support Ordinary Lives of People With Disabilities,” Gutsell and Hulgin analyze the work of power/ideology in shaping discourse and the search for new understandings of the representation of disabilities, in turn developing the work of technical communication as an inclusive practice. Following the work of Hall (1997) and Foucault (1969/1972), Gutsell and Hulgin assume a critical cultural studies lens to examine the social construction of language and its tendency to perpetuate “notions of disability and the inherent concept of normalcy” (84). Gutsell and Hulgin isolate the supercrip metaphor and identify a need for critical cultural perspectives of technical communication as a potentially normalizing practice, in turn suggesting a context-based approach to the work of technical communication and inclusive design. The conversation on metaphor is sustained by Arduser, who utilizes a critical approach to the use of metaphor in a specific discourse community. Employing a critical analysis of metaphors in the online diabetes community TuDiabetes, Arduser emphasized three phases in her study – identification, interpretation, and metaphor explanation – to illustrate the empowering use of “diabetes is war” and “diabetes is a beast.” In so doing, Arduser’s application of a critical framework to shared experience in an online social network leads to new understandings of metaphor as empowering people with disabilities and chronic diseases. Aduser

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offers a perspective that promotes the study of metaphor in patient narratives of lived experience in online communities, one that can have far-ranging impact on technical communication practice and disability studies. Moving to pedagogy, Pass presents a thorough approach to teaching web design that challenges students to investigate and reflect on the full landscape of disability, accessibility, and design choices made for all users. Presenting findings from a study that sought to explore the impact of both design and accessibility on student preferences of print versus e-book environments in a web design course, Pass reports how she invited her students to approach a digital text with which they were unfamiliar by introducing e-book versions of textbooks using the Kindle 2. In turn, Pass calls for the need to expand the definition of disability to accommodate for cognitive, physical, and emotional issues, in turn showing that “Effective accessible design doesn’t just help those with permanent disabilities—it helps everyone” (p. 118). Oswal and Hewett shift face-to-face delivery to online pedagogy as they question the attitudes of composition instructors in addressing disabilities in online writing instruction (OWI). While online instruction promises to traverse geographical borders in higher education, online writing instructors must ensure that the needs of visually impaired students are addressed. Barriers to accessibility for the blind are ubiquitous in the landscape of the Web, where the delivery of OWI relies on technologies that emphasize visual elements. Oswal and Hewett respond to this need through offering a number of practical guidelines for online writing instructors to ensure the accessibility of course delivery, content, resources, and conferences. Moving from pedagogy to the topic of web standards, Lewthwaite and Swan compellingly problematize the use of web standards as powerful tools to ensure accessibility across physical, economic, geographical, and cultural borders. Stressing the need to bring disability studies into the lens of technical communication scholarship, Lewthwaite and Swan situate the battle for accessibility as a global problem, one that can begin to be addressed through the contextual and culturally informed application of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) of the World Wide Web 64

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Consortium (W3C). The process of composing the WCAG is international, open, and public, yet it presents a number of unique barriers to ensuring accessibility at the macro-level and emphasizes a minority world view. In examining the complex language presented through the WCAG, Lewthwaite and Swan suggest that guidelines, when adhering to technological and cultural specificity, may lead to contextual improvements to accessibility guidelines and thus ensure access. In contextualizing the global issues of accessibility presented by Lewthwaite and Swan, Larkin performs an analysis of web accessibility statements as they appeared on the websites of 21 organizations to examine navigational functionality, audience, and ease of use in the corporate social responsibility context. Informed by Burke’s concept of consubstantiality, audience awareness, navigation design, and relevance of content served as units of analysis for Larkin, who found that most statements included irrelevant and complex language, presenting unique challenges to persons with disabilities who utilize assistive technologies and navigational tools. In encouraging new understandings of web accessibility statements and their failure to enact shared identification between organizations and persons with disabilities, Larkin’s study presents the great potential of rhetorical inquiry in unveiling the problematic nature of web accessibility statements. Like Larkin’s essay, Pappas emphasizes policy and elucidates limitations of understanding concerning accessibility laws. Through a survey of the legal and policy parameters that inform accessible e-Content, Pappas presents the need to place legal obligations in regard to accessibility at the forefront of technical communication research and practice. The legal context presents a number of challenges for technical communicators, yet Larkin presents how technical communicators may begin to approach this emerging area of research and practice that binds accessibility to the legal landscape. To conclude the collection, Maloney presents a number of resources to aid both technical communication and disability studies scholars, including information resources on Section 508 Standards, the Americans with Disability Act of 1990 (ADA) and its amendments, and a range of web accessibility tools. Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

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Just as work in disability studies offers enormous value to technical communication, technical communication scholarship is situated to address an emerging movement to ensure accessibility for all. The essays in this collection highlight discourses of import to both technical communication and disability studies, discourses that are also shaped by social and political forces. Rhetorical Accessability identifies a need for research to approach accessibility as a multidisciplinary practice and addresses the implications of unifying seemingly disparate voices in scholarship, in turn opening many doors for the discussion of accessibility through interdisciplinary lenses.

Works cited Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. (A.S. Smith, Trans.). New York, NY: Harper and Row. (Original work published 1969) Hall, S. (1997). The work of representation: Representation, Meaning, and Language. In Hall, S. (Ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London, UK: Sage Publications. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002). Phenomenology of Perception. (C. Smith, Trans.). London, UK: Routledge. (Original work published 1962) Oswal, S. (2013). Exploring accessibility as a potential area of research for technical communication: A modest proposal. Communication Design Quarterly, 1, 50-60. Palmeri, J. (2006). Disability studies, cultural analysis, and the critical practice of technical communication pedagogy. Technical Communication Quarterly, 15, 49-65. Salvo, M. (2005). Teaching accessibility in the technical communication Classroom. In Burnett, R. and Kain, D., (Eds.), Effective Strategies for Teaching Technical Communication (pp. 235-246), Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Walters, S. (2010). Toward an accessible pedagogy: Dis/ability, multimodality, and universal design in the technical communication classroom. Technical Communication Quarterly, 19, 427-454. 66

Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 November 2013

Book review Nathan Franklin, Whatcom Community College [email protected]

The UX book: Process and guidelines for ensuring a quality user experience. Rex Hartson and Pardha A. Pyla. San Diego: Morgan Kaufmann. 2012. Immediately, the Preface and introduction of Rex Hartson and Pardha A. Pyla’s (2012) co-authored The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience, grounds the reader in a specific overview of the practical and pedagogical components of the UX design process. The practical aspect of the text centers on what the authors call the UX lifecycle, a highly structured framework that orchestrates the many different design and evaluative stages of system or product completion. The pedagogical approach of the text is an awareness of audience that translates into a customizable book. Both authors encourage their readers to decide what parts of the text are of interest and to focus on those sections only. Central to the text’s overall approach is the refrain “user experience is more than usability” (pg. xi). Within this approach, for instance, Hartson and Pyla address some of the ineffective metaphors that cloud or muddle the UX lifecycle process. Previous models often rely on testing, or lab-based metaphors that fail to generate a quality user experience. With the rise of design-oriented techniques today, the development process has been wrested from previously-held beliefs that a system or product can be generated independent of the user’s environment. Another and quite significant approach of the text is its theoretical underpinnings. Cognitive science, phenomenology and ethnographic research methods, rendered through the design approach called contextual inquiry, enable UXers to capture task performance to design a system that makes completing tasks fun and efficient. This phenomenological approach is interesting in the following ways: it emphasizes the user and their relation to

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phenomena (how they appear) and how users interact with phenomena to make meaning. From this perspective, usability enhancement entails a process sensitive to the way interfaces, menu bars, etc. appear to the user themselves; they are not seeing algorithms, but interfaces and items to click on, and that means that the design or lifecycle process, which contextual inquiry promotes, is getting, as much as possible, all aspects of how things appear in a given environment. What makes this approach interesting is the degree to which it resonates with current scholarship in continental philosophy, object-oriented philosophy specifically. Just as UX is an extension of the phenomenological tradition, OOP extends the broken hammer idea not only to the user but to all objects: we never encounter the thing in itself directly; what we encounter is a caricature and other objects that are appearing and disappearing from each other as well. Graham Harman (2002), following Heidegger, calls this the as-structure: we see and interact with things as something, but seeing them as something does not mean they we are seeing the truth of what that object is. This idea plays out it this text, especially the chapter on contextual inquiry (pg. 69). With this in mind, one of the key chapters to understand why UX values usability is Chapter 3. Chapter 3 is a highly-detailed account of what needs to happen in order to design systems to enable workers to complete their tasks more effectively. Empirical processes are important, but the overall goal is to understand more deeply what users do at work and what they say about what they do; intervening in the space between work practice and what is said about work practice is crucial information/data for designing effective user experience systems. To guide the reader through this chapter, the authors define key terms and each key term is extracted from the text and appears along the borders of the main text itself as blue squares; the text is written in a white font. This is an important organization and rhetorical method because it enables the reader to identify the key terms needed to collect data at a specific work domain, and that entails being equipped with the appropriate terms to facilitate the design process. For example, the authors define a work domain as “the entire context of work and work practice in the target

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enterprise or other target usage environment” (pg. 88). What is important about this definition is its insight that certain practices, objects, and user tasks appear in a context without which you cannot understand the meaning of the tasks being performed. In addition to defining key terms to focus the design teams’ attention on user work tasks, Hartson and Pyla provide the reader with a number of methods for UXers to collect data, methods ranging from observations and interviews, to gaining the best perspective to determine whether a company needs to improve their current system or overhaul and design something new entirely, coalescing into what the author’s call the system concept statement. Hartson and Pyla explain that “[a] system concept statement is a concise descriptive summary of the envisioned system or product stating an initial system vision or mandate; in short, it is a mission statement for the project” (pg. 96). The authors ground contextual inquiry in a few empirical methods, such as ethnography and Activity Theory, which plays out in sections of the text that give the reader a better sense of how to collect the appropriate kinds of data, as in, for example, including the user in the inquiry process, video recording, questions to and not to ask, and collecting work artifacts. In addition to describing the contextual inquiry process, Hartson and Pyla give concrete examples of their own inquiry process to make the reader feel comfortable employing UX’s contextual inquiry model in their own design situations. A small detail that might not make its way into some design teams’ radar, however, is paying attention to the emotional aspects of work. Hartson and Pyla write, “Look for the impact of aesthetics and fun in work practice, and look for opportunities for more of the same” (pg. 120). The aesthetics of work touches on the phenomenological aspect of the work domain. When certain objects and tasks appear in a specific work domain, for instance, the background ambience becomes codified as aesthetics and fun; both aesthetics and fun impact not only the HCI component of their work but provide a crucial lens for understanding what kinds of tasks users find pleasurable and meaningful. When tasks are fun and aesthetically pleasing, it means that the system’s presence is unobtrusive, which enables users to perform their work tasks in fun and inviting ways.

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What’s more, the contextual inquiry mode also focuses on elements in the work domain where the system should not appear, as it might distract the user from their work. For instance, UX design teams should take care not to “inject fun and surprise” (pg. 120) when the data does not support those kinds of decisions. In a similar vein, the authors invite readers to consider the phenomenological concept of presence in a new light This is important for many different reasons, but it is particularly important because it informs the entire UX lifecycle process: When the system is present to the user, what happens? What this question aims to provoke, and what the authors are ultimately outlining, especially in the lifecycle concept, is that presence as it is defined here is what Graham Harman (2002) would call, following Heidegger, ready-to-hand (pg. 19): the system is absent in its presence. In other words, presence here means embedded and ubiquitous; the system is part of users’ lives and that means the system is sometimes the ambient murmur in the background. When we think of presence outside of the phenomenological tradition or lens, the object is reduced to its use value, for example, rather than something meaningful and embedded, which is the UX design goal: designing systems that are ubiquitous and meaningfully present. As the authors put it, “[…] presence is about a relationship we have with a device or product. It is no longer just a device for doing a task, but we feel emotional ties” (pg. 296). Chapter 7, then, is crucial for UXers as it provides a framework for designing systems that should be meaningfully present for users, and that entails, as mentioned earlier, a heightened sensitivity to the emotional context of users and how it plays out in the work domain. To that end, designing systems, or going through the iterative process, should mean having an eye towards long-term thinking, and that happens within the phenomenological register: “It is not just about a point in time within usage, but [this approach] speaks to a whole style and presence of the product over time” (pg. 297). In as much as the phenomenological register foregrounds UX design methodologies and UX design guidelines in certain respects, Chapter 22 gives readers insights into the subtle nuances of where and when UX applies its phenomenological concepts. For example, the authors present the case of avoiding

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anthropomorphism in system interaction designs, claiming: “If your interaction dialogue portrays the machine as a human, users will expect more. When you cannot deliver, however, it is overpromising” (pg. 794), but what is being elided here is precisely the phenomenological register. Graham Harman (2002) contends that we do not encounter the object as it is in itself; rather, every encounter with phenomena means encountering it as something; we cannot escape from the as-structure (pg. 69). In this vein, it’s curious to encourage future UX practitioners to take phenomenology seriously, or the idea that the user sees the interface as something meaningful as opposed to static code, only then to dismiss anthropomorphism on the grounds that a computer is not a human (pg. 796). What I am driving at is that while meeting user expectations is important, as it means time and money, it might also be important to think about how a new perspective on anthropomorphic design might enhance user experience in potent ways. Jane Bennett (2010), for instance, suggests that anthropomorphizing reveals the inadequacy of reducing tools or machines to their mechanistic “nature” as opposed to seeing them as highly organized ecosystems serving many different purposes in highly creative ways (pg. 120). In closing, the text concludes on both optimistic and sober notes: the UX lifecycle is a process that some organizations might not take seriously or reject; however, if usability is part of the strategic plan of a corporation, UX practitioners are in a position to implement the UX lifecycle process in real settings with the right people to carry out the design process. Where things go awry for UX design teams is when an unevaluated design system stabilizes and is sent to production designers for development, only to find out a year later that said system is buggy (pg. 859). When this happens, Hartson and Pyla believe that there were design phases excluded from the purview of the UX lifecycle, thereby implying that all iterations, prototypes, and evaluative feedback should be in the hands of UX design teams connected and working within the lifecycle. The UX lifecycle concept is at the heart of the authors’ argument, in other words, even if they designed a highly customizable text, as for the authors this concept deeply informs both design completion and user experience. Without the UX

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lifecycle process, then, the nitty-gritty details of system design, which Chapters 3-24 cover, will likely be seen and performed in non-UX phenomenological registers (lab-based), negatively impacting both user experience and work performance.

Work cited Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Duke University Press: Durham, NC. Harman, G. (2002). Tool-being: Heidegger and the metaphyics of objects. Chicago: Open Court. Hartson, R., & Pyla, P. S. (2012). The UX book: Process and guidelines for ensuring a quality user Experience. San Diego: Morgan Kaufmann [Imprint].

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