USABILITY.

Catalog description

Notes: may be stacked with ENGL 505 . Usability is a metric for which we gauge the effectiveness of our technical communication. We may often describe a product as “usable” or not “user-friendly.” These terms indicate whether the product is or is not easy to navigate, use or comprehend. This course emphasizes user research and usability evaluation to test and revise technical products and artifacts so users can complete tasks efficiently and successfully. In this class, students will research the needs of representative users (including their environmental limitations and the tasks they need to complete), develop a usability test plan, conduct usability evaluations, and analyze, report, and present this research in a way that assists writers/producers to create new, more usable iterations of their technical communication products.