Re: Audience analysis and usability research after content is written

[Craig Haiss <craighaiss -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Hi, Ilya! Congratulations on completing the manual; that's quite an accomplishment.

The following article has some interesting suggestions for testing the usability of a manual.

http://www.uie.com/articles/documentation_help/

I hope it helps. 

Craig Haiss


--- On Thu, 5/6/10, Ilya Haykinson <haykinson -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> From: Ilya Haykinson <haykinson -at- gmail -dot- com>
> Subject: Audience analysis and usability research after content is written
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Date: Thursday, May 6, 2010, 2:02 AM
> 
> As we gear up for a second edition and following editions
> for future
> versions of the operating system, I'm facing the need to do
> some research to
> figure out whether our manual is adequate for our audience.
> I wanted to ask
> your opinion on performing this kind of research.
> 
> Given that our manual is for something as general as an
> operating system,
> how should we go about doing the research to figure out
> whether we've
> written what people want? Are the people we think would
> want to use actually
> reading the manual? How are they reading it? Why are they
> reading it? Are we
> successful in providing good instruction or are people
> confused?
> 
> It appears to me that we may need both qualitative and
> quantitative
> research; we may need to establish multiple personae to
> better understand
> reader needs. However, I lack the background in research to
> understand how
> we may want to jump into studying a first-generation manual
> for an existing
> product, and am kind of unclear what kind of question we'd
> ask and how we'd
> work with folks (assuming we solve the problem of
> recruiting people for
> focus groups etc).
> 
> Can anyone suggest some things to think about, or
> approaches to take? (or,
> does anyone want to help out?)
> 
> -ilya haykinson
>  ubuntu manual project



      

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