The Humane Experience

The 90 Seconds Rule-- In my previous blog I talked about how users can only stand being in Help (and away from the task they would rather be...

The new research primer is here, the new research primer is here... Older readers might remember the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk....

Not All Questions Are Hard-- During a walkthrough last week of some Help topics I had written, my colleagues and I were discussing when to p...

Email vs. e-mail-- I got involved in a debate this week over email vs e-mail. Our UI says "email" and our documentation style gui...

Blog Otro-- I decided I need to learn Spanish (again-I've decided this about three times now). This time I think I'm going to make i...

A Newsy Blog-- Al Hood announced at last week's STC meeting that I am the "Atlanta Conference 2009 Planning Committee Chair." ...

Encyclopedias do not user assistance make-- One of my colleagues attended an internal training session last week so she could observe how ou...

Product Names-- I was helping my wife this weekend brush our dog's teeth. Yes, that's the level of quiet desperation my weekends hav...

Timberline Hitches and C++ Just went camping for three days with an old high school buddy, who happens to be an experienced scout master and...

Maturity or Bureaucracy?-- In his latest Alert Box , Jacob Nielsen talks about the pros and cons of developers doing their own usability tes...

Call Me Tina-- Apologies to Holly Harkness for the pun on her blog title. I was chatting it up over wine with my mentor and friend Carol Ba...

Dressing Like a Grownup-- Al Hood posted pictures from the STC conference recently on his president's blog . There was a picture of me ...

Dagnabbit!-- I'm just too old for some of the new design trends, and I'm starting to mutter at my PC sounding like my Aunt Hattie (b...

Holly's Back-- For those who missed Holly Harkness's transition from her President's blog, her new blog is: http://dontcallmetin...

Just got back from a week at the beach playing with the grandbaby and mastering boat drinks made in a blender--IOW, feeling pretty calm and ...

New Column-- Please see my column in the current UXMatters . It is called The Anatomy of a Help File and discusses how user-centered Help c...

Patterns for Interviewing SMEs-- At this year's STC conference, I attended a presentation by Larry Todd Wilson on Knowledge Harvesting. ...

Breathe in, breathe out-- In my last blog I spoke about the importance of collaborative walk-throughs, and I wanted to reflect a little on w...

Team Writing-- My current project has four writers dividing up the contents for a Help file in our belief that nine women could have a baby ...

Design for the Primary User Assistance Experience-- How do you architect a Help experience? Well, the common wisdom is to design it around t...