BIB_07: 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), 320-332.

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.

BIB_07: Salvo, M. (2001). Ethics of engagement: User-centered design and rhetorical methodology. Technical Communication Quarterly, 10, 273-290.

In this article, Salvo argues that the shift from observing the users to inviting users to participate in the design process poses new ethical demands to technical communicators. Salvo invokes dialogic ethics in rhetoric theory, in which the self is understood to be constructed through dialogue, or its interaction with others, and argues that dialogic ethics can inform the development of user-centered and user-participatory methods. Salvo uses three examples of user-centered design practice to illustrate that these methods, as dialogical interactions, can best help designers design technology that serves the users' needs. These examples are Pelle Ehn's participatory design, or Scandinavian Design, Roger Whitehouse's description of designing directional signs for blind users in "The Uniqueness of Individual Perception," and the design of a Web-based first-year composition system.

Salve seems to distinguish "user-centered" methods from "user-participatory" methods, although sometimes this distinction is not very obvious. Salve argues that user-participatory methods have grown from user-centered methods, and dialogic ethics in rhetoric provides a lens that informs the development of user-participatory design (p. 287). Since dialogic interaction is highly contextual, i.e., that it responds to specific situations, the theoretical lens is particularly valuable in cultural usability research. The "respect for local conditions" (p. 282) that required by dialogic interaction is also a principle in cultural usability research.