In this article, three of Patricia Sullivan's students reflect on the history and recent trend of usability research in technical communication in response to Sullivan's 1989 article "Beyond a Narrow Conception of Usability Testing." They argue that usability is not only a legitimate research area in technical communication but is enriched by the rhetorical perspective that technical communicators bring in. Interrogating recent literature on usability, the authors points out the limitations of understanding usability research as "science," and, following Sullivan, argue that rhetoric bridges the gap between the two cultures--science and culture--and emphasizes on application, which coincides with the nature of engineering.
The brief history of usability research in technical communication offered by the authors lays out concisely a background, which is useful in understanding usability as a research area in the field. The discussion of usability in the context of the debate of science, culture, and rhetoric provides a context for discussion of methodology in usability study projects. The authors' view that an aspect of usability is rhetoric supports the use of non-scientific methods in usability research. The section that discussion the difference between user-centered design and usability is interesting (UCD maintains boundaries between products and users, and usability breaks the boundaries more radically), although I do not completely agree with the authors.
Showing posts with label Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Johnson. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
RR_07: usability & participatory design
The readings this week present some of the fundamental issues in usability research and practice. The authors offer their different perspectives on the nature of usability research and methodologies developed from various intellectual traditions. While Gillan and Bias (2001) argue for a view of usability as a science, others challenge the “Big Science” approach (Coppola, 2005). Technical communicators who have a firm grip on rhetoric argue for a rhetorical approach to usability that contextualize research and practice in complex ways (Salvo, 2001; Johnson et. al., 2007; Skeen, 2009).
In these readings usability is often understood as a mode of research to understand users and their interaction with technology. As Michael Salvo (2001) has noted, usability is “a critical research practice as well as a design mechanism” (p. 280). According to P. Sullivan (1989), “[t]he subject matter of usability research can be usefully described as the studies of users learning to use and using various computer products, in the design and evaluation phases of development, for the purposes of learning more about how people use machines and of improving the machines and educational materials” (p. 256-57). In other words, usability is a mode of inquiry with the objective to understand users and their interaction with technology.
The understandings of usability as a mode of research among researchers are by no means without contradiction and contention. The divergence very often resides between the scientific and the non-scientific approaches to usability. According to Johnson et al. (2007), historically, usability has been considered a “scientific activity—an activity guided by strategic methods and often quantitative measurement systems—that attempts to create verifiable and replicable results” (p. 323). One example from the scientific camp is Gillan and Bias's (2001) notion of “usability science.” The authors state that a “new applied scientific discipline, usability science” has emerged to bridge “the conceptual area between the basic cognitive and behavioral sciences (primarily cognitive and perceptual psychology) and usability engineering” (p. 352).
However, Johnson et al. (2007) critique Gillan and Bias's “usability science” by pointing out that their confinement of usability to a few disciplines in psychology and engineering results in a “narrow range of inquiry” (p. 323). Johnson et al. argue that technical communicators' interest and work in usability studies have brought “something of a disruption of the dominance of usability as science” in the field of usability studies, and usability has thus also been recognized as “a rhetorical art” (p. 323). Gillan and Bias's notion of “usability science,” according to Johnson et al., only “seeks to sever communication between the art and their proposed science of usability” (p. 323). Based on their critique of Gillan and Bias's “usability science” and drawing on rhetorical traditions, Johnson et al. define usability in terms of rhetoric, paying close attention to context, and in so doing “seek to return this discussion of usability to the application and use of scientific findings rather than displacing science or emplacing science in application” (p. 327). In other words, to Johnson et al., the inquiry of usability must consist of both “scientific and replicable” and “nonscientific” research (p. 327).
Johnson et al.'s effort to break the boundaries between scientific and non-scientific natures of usability was expressed by Sullivan (1989), who has pointed out that the multidisciplinary and multidimensional nature of usability research. She argues that a broad understanding of usability research will include “the work of people who design systems, test them, develop educational materials, and study users” (p. 256). This view broadens the scope of usability research beyond cognitive and behavioral sciences and engineering to include the work of technical communicators.
The tension between the scientific and the broader understanding of usability as research can be seen as part of the tension between the Big Science and the bricolage in technical and professional communication (Coppola, 2005). In response to the prevailing presence of Big Science in the field, Coppola emphasizes the importance of importance of the attention to context and individual experience in research, an approach in line with bricolage in Lévi-Strauss's term. Coppola points out a certain bias in the field against bricolage approach in favor of the Big Science:
To Spinuzzi, a goal of participatory design is precisely to “preserve” the user's knowledge to illuminate the design of technology that can “fit into the existing web of tacit knowledge, workflow, and work tools, rather than doing away with them” (ibid). Here, Spinuzzi's approach can be seen as a bricoleur's approach in Coppola's terms for it contrasts the “rationalist studies that assume workers' tasks can be broken down into their components, formalized, and made more efficient” (ibid)—i.e., a Big Science approach. It is in this sense that Spinuzzi contends that participatory design takes a “constructive” paradigm, which “assumes that tacit knowledge cannot be completely formalized” as apposed to the “task-and-efficiency orientation typical in many user-centered design methods” including usability testing (ibid).
The readings in this section can serve very well to support a broader approach to research in web usability in addition to lab usability testing.
In these readings usability is often understood as a mode of research to understand users and their interaction with technology. As Michael Salvo (2001) has noted, usability is “a critical research practice as well as a design mechanism” (p. 280). According to P. Sullivan (1989), “[t]he subject matter of usability research can be usefully described as the studies of users learning to use and using various computer products, in the design and evaluation phases of development, for the purposes of learning more about how people use machines and of improving the machines and educational materials” (p. 256-57). In other words, usability is a mode of inquiry with the objective to understand users and their interaction with technology.
The understandings of usability as a mode of research among researchers are by no means without contradiction and contention. The divergence very often resides between the scientific and the non-scientific approaches to usability. According to Johnson et al. (2007), historically, usability has been considered a “scientific activity—an activity guided by strategic methods and often quantitative measurement systems—that attempts to create verifiable and replicable results” (p. 323). One example from the scientific camp is Gillan and Bias's (2001) notion of “usability science.” The authors state that a “new applied scientific discipline, usability science” has emerged to bridge “the conceptual area between the basic cognitive and behavioral sciences (primarily cognitive and perceptual psychology) and usability engineering” (p. 352).
However, Johnson et al. (2007) critique Gillan and Bias's “usability science” by pointing out that their confinement of usability to a few disciplines in psychology and engineering results in a “narrow range of inquiry” (p. 323). Johnson et al. argue that technical communicators' interest and work in usability studies have brought “something of a disruption of the dominance of usability as science” in the field of usability studies, and usability has thus also been recognized as “a rhetorical art” (p. 323). Gillan and Bias's notion of “usability science,” according to Johnson et al., only “seeks to sever communication between the art and their proposed science of usability” (p. 323). Based on their critique of Gillan and Bias's “usability science” and drawing on rhetorical traditions, Johnson et al. define usability in terms of rhetoric, paying close attention to context, and in so doing “seek to return this discussion of usability to the application and use of scientific findings rather than displacing science or emplacing science in application” (p. 327). In other words, to Johnson et al., the inquiry of usability must consist of both “scientific and replicable” and “nonscientific” research (p. 327).
Johnson et al.'s effort to break the boundaries between scientific and non-scientific natures of usability was expressed by Sullivan (1989), who has pointed out that the multidisciplinary and multidimensional nature of usability research. She argues that a broad understanding of usability research will include “the work of people who design systems, test them, develop educational materials, and study users” (p. 256). This view broadens the scope of usability research beyond cognitive and behavioral sciences and engineering to include the work of technical communicators.
The tension between the scientific and the broader understanding of usability as research can be seen as part of the tension between the Big Science and the bricolage in technical and professional communication (Coppola, 2005). In response to the prevailing presence of Big Science in the field, Coppola emphasizes the importance of importance of the attention to context and individual experience in research, an approach in line with bricolage in Lévi-Strauss's term. Coppola points out a certain bias in the field against bricolage approach in favor of the Big Science:
Big Science has become identified with funded research, the seemingly best way to create meaningful investigations of the physical world; bricolage has become associated with close reading, a lesser way to create meaningful interpretations of the human world. From the beginning, both were scientific, unafraid to shed myths in favor of methodological scrutiny. Both were unafraid to take things apart. Both endured. Only one, however, prevailed. (p. 262)The theme of bricolage is also present in Spinuzzi's (2005) discussion about participatory design as research. As C. Spinuzzi (2005) points out, “participatory design has its own highly articulated methodological orientation, methods, and techniques, just as does participatory action research, the approach on which it is based” and thus” (p. 163). He concludes therefore that “[p]articipotory design is research” (ibid). Historically, according to Spinuzzi, participatory design is associated with “action research,” an activity “alternating alternating between practical work to support changes (such as design activities) on one hand, and systematic data collection and analysis on the other hand,” and ethnographic methods (p. 164). Understanding participatory design as research is to recognize the user's knowledge, i.e., “tacit or craft knowledge” linked to metis, “cunning intelligence,” which has been invisible in many other research approaches (p. 166).
To Spinuzzi, a goal of participatory design is precisely to “preserve” the user's knowledge to illuminate the design of technology that can “fit into the existing web of tacit knowledge, workflow, and work tools, rather than doing away with them” (ibid). Here, Spinuzzi's approach can be seen as a bricoleur's approach in Coppola's terms for it contrasts the “rationalist studies that assume workers' tasks can be broken down into their components, formalized, and made more efficient” (ibid)—i.e., a Big Science approach. It is in this sense that Spinuzzi contends that participatory design takes a “constructive” paradigm, which “assumes that tacit knowledge cannot be completely formalized” as apposed to the “task-and-efficiency orientation typical in many user-centered design methods” including usability testing (ibid).
The readings in this section can serve very well to support a broader approach to research in web usability in addition to lab usability testing.
BIB_07: Coppola, N. W. (2005). Big science or bricolage: An alternative model for research in technical communication. IEEE transactions on professional communication, 48(3).
Coppola argues in this article for the continuation of the bricoleur approach in technical communication research that has been undervalued by researchers who are proponents of the Big Science approach. The article is in response to the prevailing call for "research" in technical communication, which favors the Gig Science research often associated with funded research. Drawing on Aristotelian philosophic tradition and invoking the idea of praxis, Coppola emphasizes the importance of the attention to context and individual experience in research, an approach in line with bricolage in Lévi-Strauss's term. Coppola advocates resistance to the assertion that not enough research has been done in tech comm, and call for the celebration of the a multi-methods tradition in technical communication research.
This is another article that deals with the debate between scientific and non-scientific methodologies in the field of technical communication. Coppola, like many from a rhetorical background such as Salvo, Johnson, and Sullivan, puts great value to the consideration of contexts and specificities. His is a piece that directly resist the impulse of valuing empirical/scientific research over bricolage.
This is another article that deals with the debate between scientific and non-scientific methodologies in the field of technical communication. Coppola, like many from a rhetorical background such as Salvo, Johnson, and Sullivan, puts great value to the consideration of contexts and specificities. His is a piece that directly resist the impulse of valuing empirical/scientific research over bricolage.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
RR_06: Johnson, R. R. (1998). User-centered technology: a rhetorical theory for computers and other mundane artifacts. Albany, NY: State University of New York at Albany.
Johnson's book provide a rhetorical theoretical view of the user-centered approach to technology. The points well articulated in the book abound, and I want to discuss a few of them that are particularly pertaining to my project.
First of all, Johnson offers a succinct description of what the user-centered approach to technology is and seeks to achieve compared to the system-centered approach:
First, in a user-centered approach to technology, users' active participation is an important part in the life cycle of technology, from the stage of design, through development and implementation, to maintenance. This is in contrast to some system-centered approach that involves the user only in some stages such as perhaps towards the completion of technology development for user testing, or as what Johnson calls treating users a kind of “token members” (p. 32). One example he points out is the user involvement in interface design: “The interface is crucial to the user of the technology, but more often than not this intimate connecting point between the technology and the user is relegated to the end of the development cycle—at a point where there is often little that can be done to solve any problems the user may have while operating the technology” (pp. 27-28). As the intermediate between the user and the system, the interface perhaps is the foremost familiar if not important part of the system to the user, and thus its development is more likely to involve the user than any other part. Relegating it to the end of the development cycle often means that users get involved in the development process only up to this point, which to Johnson is a serious problem.
Second, rather than the “dominant” agent in the process, the user takes part in the negotiation of the technology design, development, and use. In other words, the user is only one stakeholder in the process, who is allowed to voice her/his opinion and contribute her/his knowledge to the process. Johnson makes this point clear so that the user's knowledge from use will claim a valued position in a way that does not oppress others. From this point, we can also see the egalitarian view that guides the user-centered approach. By encouraging users claiming the “power that historically has been concentrated solely in the province of the designers of technology” (p. 32), the user-centered approach aims to decenter the power. It is in this sense that user-centered design should not only be conceived in an engineering perspective, but in a sociopolitical perspective.
Without being too reductive, one could argue that taking a rhetorical position, Johnson's description of user-centered approach to technology falls into the humanist camp of usability studies, which values complexity over reduction and which has strong political and emancipatory concerns.
Perhaps the biggest contribution of Johnson in this book is the user-centered rhetorical complex of technology he developed that can be used as a framework to analyze technology that centers on the user and the contextualized use. Borrowing I. A. Richard and James Kinneavy's rhetorical triangle metaphor, Johnson develops a triangle depicting a user-centered rhetoric (see figure below).
The triangle depicts an technological environment that consists of the user, the artisan/designer, the artifact/system, and user tasks/system actions with the user situated in the center. The elements in environment are essential for the interaction between the user and the system. Based on this triangle, Johnson further complicates the situation by surrounding it with three layers of context, or “pressures and constraints” in the surrounding contexts or situations, forming what he calls a user-centered rhetorical complex. The first layer consists of the user activities of “learning, doing, and producing” (p. 38). The second layer consists of “constraints that larger human networks place upon technological use,” which Johnson depicts as “disciplines, institutions, and communities” (ibid). Finally, the outer layer consists of “the factors of culture and history” (p. 39).
In relation to the user-centered rhetorical complex is another concept developed by Johnson, the user's situation. Johnson defines the user's situation as the activity “the user is engaged in and, in some cases, the moment in which this engagement occurs” (p. 31). Although he points out that the activities can be described specifically as learning, doing, and producing, the notion of user's situation should be understood in a broader sense. In other words, the user's situation is affected by all the elements in the user-centered rhetorical complex. For instance, when Johnson discusses the importance of localizing the user's situation in a specific context, he notes that it is important to understand the user's role in an organization. In the case of documentation, “[t]he specific nature of users' work, then, drives documentation that is customized to the context of use instead of generically explained to a universal user who is the construct of a writer's imagination” (pp. 129-130). In this case, Johnson is pointing out the importance of considering the second layer of the context of use in the user-centered rhetorical complex, namely institution and discipline and the user's relationship with them, when we trying to understand the user's situation.
The user-centered rhetorical complex is a very useful framework when we consider cultural usability of technology. Note here the complex and sometime confusing use of the term “culture,” which has multiple meanings depending on the specific context of use. Here in the user-centered rhetorical complex, Johnson seems to use the term “culture” in a narrow sense to denote the higher level of human actions and meanings as a society. However, later in the book, when he discuss computer user documentation, Johnson uses “culture” in a broad sense “to mean any community that might have common bonds due to context or practice: that is, workplace cultures, classroom cultures, and even electronic cultures such as those emerging from the use of the Internet or other computer networked arrangements” (121). The reason for Johnson to use a narrow meaning of culture in his discussion of the user-centered rhetorical complex is because used in broader sense, culture can include all the elements in the three layers (rings) of context. Therefore, using the term broadly cannot achieve any meaningful objective here. However, when speaking of cultural usability and cultural localization, we should not understand culture only in the narrow sense in terms of national cultures or other higher level cultures, but also consider the local cultures that the user resides.
Finally, it will interesting to compare Johnson's model to Sun's (2004) framework of cultural usability (see figure below) (p. 59). I will return to this topic in the future post on Sun.
Reference
Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
First of all, Johnson offers a succinct description of what the user-centered approach to technology is and seeks to achieve compared to the system-centered approach:
In a user-centered approach to technology, users are active participants in the design, development, implementation, and maintenance of the technology. This is not meant to imply that users are the sole or dominant forces in technology development. Rather, they are allowed to take part in a negotiated process of technology design, development, and use that has only rarely been practiced. Users are encouraged and invited to "have a say," in other words, and thus they are physically or discursively present in the decision-making processes of technological development. Invited to become actively involved with the technology in a greater, more integrated fashion, users become members of a team, but not just token members as they are in many usability approaches that merely invite users in at the end of the development cycle to validate a product. Because the users are involved with decision making in the user-centered model, they have power that historically has been concentrated solely in the province of the designers of technology (or in the province of the technological artifact itself, if you adhere to a strong determinist stance). (p. 32)This definition of the user-centered approach to technology touches on a couple of important points:
First, in a user-centered approach to technology, users' active participation is an important part in the life cycle of technology, from the stage of design, through development and implementation, to maintenance. This is in contrast to some system-centered approach that involves the user only in some stages such as perhaps towards the completion of technology development for user testing, or as what Johnson calls treating users a kind of “token members” (p. 32). One example he points out is the user involvement in interface design: “The interface is crucial to the user of the technology, but more often than not this intimate connecting point between the technology and the user is relegated to the end of the development cycle—at a point where there is often little that can be done to solve any problems the user may have while operating the technology” (pp. 27-28). As the intermediate between the user and the system, the interface perhaps is the foremost familiar if not important part of the system to the user, and thus its development is more likely to involve the user than any other part. Relegating it to the end of the development cycle often means that users get involved in the development process only up to this point, which to Johnson is a serious problem.
Second, rather than the “dominant” agent in the process, the user takes part in the negotiation of the technology design, development, and use. In other words, the user is only one stakeholder in the process, who is allowed to voice her/his opinion and contribute her/his knowledge to the process. Johnson makes this point clear so that the user's knowledge from use will claim a valued position in a way that does not oppress others. From this point, we can also see the egalitarian view that guides the user-centered approach. By encouraging users claiming the “power that historically has been concentrated solely in the province of the designers of technology” (p. 32), the user-centered approach aims to decenter the power. It is in this sense that user-centered design should not only be conceived in an engineering perspective, but in a sociopolitical perspective.
Without being too reductive, one could argue that taking a rhetorical position, Johnson's description of user-centered approach to technology falls into the humanist camp of usability studies, which values complexity over reduction and which has strong political and emancipatory concerns.
Perhaps the biggest contribution of Johnson in this book is the user-centered rhetorical complex of technology he developed that can be used as a framework to analyze technology that centers on the user and the contextualized use. Borrowing I. A. Richard and James Kinneavy's rhetorical triangle metaphor, Johnson develops a triangle depicting a user-centered rhetoric (see figure below).
The triangle depicts an technological environment that consists of the user, the artisan/designer, the artifact/system, and user tasks/system actions with the user situated in the center. The elements in environment are essential for the interaction between the user and the system. Based on this triangle, Johnson further complicates the situation by surrounding it with three layers of context, or “pressures and constraints” in the surrounding contexts or situations, forming what he calls a user-centered rhetorical complex. The first layer consists of the user activities of “learning, doing, and producing” (p. 38). The second layer consists of “constraints that larger human networks place upon technological use,” which Johnson depicts as “disciplines, institutions, and communities” (ibid). Finally, the outer layer consists of “the factors of culture and history” (p. 39).
In relation to the user-centered rhetorical complex is another concept developed by Johnson, the user's situation. Johnson defines the user's situation as the activity “the user is engaged in and, in some cases, the moment in which this engagement occurs” (p. 31). Although he points out that the activities can be described specifically as learning, doing, and producing, the notion of user's situation should be understood in a broader sense. In other words, the user's situation is affected by all the elements in the user-centered rhetorical complex. For instance, when Johnson discusses the importance of localizing the user's situation in a specific context, he notes that it is important to understand the user's role in an organization. In the case of documentation, “[t]he specific nature of users' work, then, drives documentation that is customized to the context of use instead of generically explained to a universal user who is the construct of a writer's imagination” (pp. 129-130). In this case, Johnson is pointing out the importance of considering the second layer of the context of use in the user-centered rhetorical complex, namely institution and discipline and the user's relationship with them, when we trying to understand the user's situation.
The user-centered rhetorical complex is a very useful framework when we consider cultural usability of technology. Note here the complex and sometime confusing use of the term “culture,” which has multiple meanings depending on the specific context of use. Here in the user-centered rhetorical complex, Johnson seems to use the term “culture” in a narrow sense to denote the higher level of human actions and meanings as a society. However, later in the book, when he discuss computer user documentation, Johnson uses “culture” in a broad sense “to mean any community that might have common bonds due to context or practice: that is, workplace cultures, classroom cultures, and even electronic cultures such as those emerging from the use of the Internet or other computer networked arrangements” (121). The reason for Johnson to use a narrow meaning of culture in his discussion of the user-centered rhetorical complex is because used in broader sense, culture can include all the elements in the three layers (rings) of context. Therefore, using the term broadly cannot achieve any meaningful objective here. However, when speaking of cultural usability and cultural localization, we should not understand culture only in the narrow sense in terms of national cultures or other higher level cultures, but also consider the local cultures that the user resides.
Finally, it will interesting to compare Johnson's model to Sun's (2004) framework of cultural usability (see figure below) (p. 59). I will return to this topic in the future post on Sun.
Reference
Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
BIB_06: Johnson, R. R. (1998). User-centered technology: a rhetorical theory for computers and other mundane artifacts. Albany, NY: State University of New York at Albany.
In this book, Johnson addresses the problem of user-centered technology from a rhetorical perspective and explores the implications of the rhetoric of (user-centered) technology to technical communicators and, more importantly, the technical communicators' contribution to this conversation shared in various disciplines from sociology and history to philosophy and technical communication. The book starts with a theoretical discussion of the user and user-centered technology from a rhetorical perspective. Relying on classic rhetorical tradition (such as the Aristotelian idea of teche), Johnson refigures technology as art. By doing so, Johnson restores the user's status as "practitioner," "producer," and "citizen," and calls our attention to the important yet neglected and trivialized user's knowledge, especially the aspect which he calls metis or cunning intelligence/knowledge. Based on this rhetorical analysis of technology and user, Johnson creates a model for user-centered technology analysis called the "user-centered rhetorical complex of technology" that centers on the "user's situation" in technology use. In the second part, Johnson first reviews different user-centered perspectives in human factors, and points out their value, especially methodological value, in understanding user-centered technology. At the same time, he also points out their limitations, which precisely lie in their methodological focus. Johnson then "confronts technological determinism" by offering an critique of different types of technological determinism and anti-technological determinism perspectives across disciplines of sociology, history, and philosophy. It is followed by the third part, a discussion of user-centered issues and the application of user-centered rhetorical theory in technical communication, specifically, document development. Johnson concludes the book with a chapter addressing pedagogy from a user-centered perspective and the future of the discipline of technical communication in view of user-centered understanding of technology.
Johnson's book provides a solid rhetorical theoretical foundation of the user-centered perspective to understand the use and communication of technology. I found Johnson's model of the "user-centered rhetorical complex of technology" a great tool for analysis of user and the use of technology. By centering the user in the use of technology, the model reflects a great emphasis on the context of the user experience, or what Johnson calls the "user's situation." The idea of metis also a useful concept when we understand what Sun (2004) calls the "user localization" of technology.
Reference
Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
Johnson's book provides a solid rhetorical theoretical foundation of the user-centered perspective to understand the use and communication of technology. I found Johnson's model of the "user-centered rhetorical complex of technology" a great tool for analysis of user and the use of technology. By centering the user in the use of technology, the model reflects a great emphasis on the context of the user experience, or what Johnson calls the "user's situation." The idea of metis also a useful concept when we understand what Sun (2004) calls the "user localization" of technology.
Reference
Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
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