Tag: Innovation

Johnson R. R., Salvo M. J. & Zoetewey M. W. (2007).User-Centered Technology in Participatory Culture: Two Decades ‘Beyond a Narrow Conception of Usability Testing.’ IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 50(4), (pp. 320-332). doi: 10.1109/TPC.2007.908730

In Robert R. Johnson, Michael J. Salvo, and Meredith W. Zoetewey (2007) article, “User-Centered Technology in Participatory Culture: Two Decades ‘Beyond a Narrow Conception of Usability Testing’” they argued that “usability requires a balance between empirical observation and rhetoric” (p. 320). Johnson, Salvo, and Zoetewey outlined usability by discussing the “end-of-the-line” problem, the complex relationship between rhetoric and science, efficiency, effectiveness, accuracy, the split between culture and science, human behavior, the “Uniqueness of Individual Perception,” the relationship between humans and technologies, contingencies and probabilities, corporatization, and audience analysis. Johnson, Salvo, and Zoetewey’s purpose was to show that the “long view, exemplified in both scholarship and theorizing, may be inefficient, but it remains the only avenue for innovation and coining new knowledge” (p.330). Johnson, Salvo, and Zoetewey’s intended audience was implied psychologist, technical communicators, and engineers. Johnson, Salvo, and Zoetewey effectively demonstrated the dynamics of usability and its different facets, but there should have been more specific examples of what usability was and why the considerations mentioned were necessary.

Hallenbeck, S. (2012). User agency, technical communication, and the 19th-century woman bicyclist. Technical Communication Quarterly, 21(4), (pp. 290–306). https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2012.686846

In Sarah Hallenbeck’s (2012) article “User Agency, Technical Communication, and the 19th-Century Woman Bicyclist,” she argued “that technical communicators, in their teaching and research, should consider the role that extraorganizational technical communication plays in generating vital and lasting cultural changes” (p. 290). Hallenbeck assessed three texts and how they portrayed female users of the bicycle, gender and technology, the agency of the bicycle user, the different types of riders, and the transformative powers of the activity for women. Hallenbeck’s purpose was to establish the “need to undertake additional robust studies of user cultures, attending not only to innovative technological practices but also to user innovation and expertise as communicated through writing for purposes of promoting lasting cultural change” (p. 305). Hallenbeck’s intended audience was historical scholars studying the innovations of past technologies and professors seeking to broaden their teachings of cultural transformations. Hallenbeck did an excellent job of comparing three different bicycle manufacturing manuals and using their distinctions to support her argument.