Re: Usability Studies

[Alexia Prendergast <alexiap -at- SEAGATESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

At one of my companies, we included a feedback from in the manual, but
that didn't get a lot of response, either. We're going to try a web
feedback form and email and see how that works -- I know I'm more likely
to shoot off a quick email than deal with anything in hard copy these
days... :-)

I've also been reading two articles from the STC Journal, _Technical
Communication_, that might help:
"Setting up a Customer Review Network to Review Documentation" by Bist,
Dixon, and Chadwick, STC TC Q4 1993
"Accentuate the Negative: Obtaining Effective Reviews Through Focused
Questions" by (our own) Geoff Hart, STC TC Q1 1997

Anyone else have any suggestions, success stories, articles?

A.

--
Alexia Prendergast
Senior Technical Writer
Seagate Software
mailto:alexiap -at- sems -dot- com

>-----Original Message-----
>From:  Damien Braniff [SMTP:Damien_Braniff -at- PAC -dot- CO -dot- UK]
>Sent:  Friday, September 12, 1997 3:46 AM
>To:    TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject:       Re: Usability Studies
>
>I agree totally with Alexia Prendergast!  The only problem we have here is
>our products are sold "second hand" and we have no direct feedback from the
>customer apart from Tech Support calls and feedback from Training.  We did
>try and get some feedback by sending out a "fax-back" form -  how do you
>rate the manuals (1-10) for content, layout etc.  This was about 9 months
>ago and so far we've had one reply!!
>

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