Minutes of STC Session on Usability

Minutes of STC Session on Usability
This document details the minutes of Society for Technical Communication (STC) session on Usability for Technical Writers by Mr. Suman Kumar.

Key Details

Date........................March 20, 2010 (Saturday)

Time........................10:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Duration....................3 hours

Venue.......................Huawei Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. (HTIPL), 7th Floor,
Leela Palace, Old Airport Road, Bangalore.

Session Name................Introduction to Usability for Technical Writers

Moderators..................Mr. Rajdeep Gupta and Mr. Arun Martin

Minute Taker................Girish Urwar

Distinguished Members.......Ms. Michelle Cherian, Ms. Pratima Rajeev,
Mr. Swaminathan Moorthy, Mr. Puneet

Attendees
• STC Members
• Non-STC Members
• Technical Writers from leading organizations
• Huawei Employees

Total Attendance : 50+

Agenda

The agenda of this STC session was as follows:

Introducing STC to the audience....................................................Ms. Michelle Cherian

Introducing the concept of Usability and User experience.........Mr. Suman Kumar

Conducting a brief workshop on Usability.....................................Mr. Suman Kumar

Building a stronger technical communications network..............STC members,
general audience,
and Huawei Employees

Details

Agenda Item: Introducing STC to the General Audience

Description of Discussion:

Ms. Michelle Cherian (President-STC India Chapter) spoke about STC: its beginning, its upcoming events, its Special Interest Groups (SIGs), STC’s new portal. She stressed on building a stronger technical communications community.

Mr. Swaminathan Moorthy (Secretary-STC India Chapter) spoke about STC membership, benefits of becoming a member, SIG profiles, newsletters, types of memberships, procedure for becoming an STC member.

Agenda Item: Introducing the concept of Usability and User experience

Description of Discussion:

Mr. Suman Kumar (User experience (UX) expert with CDC software) introduced the audience to the concept of Usability. He spoke regarding the following:
• Why should a technical writer know about UX?
• Requirements for becoming a UX professional
• Who is a UX pro?
• How can UX help technical writers and organizations?
• What do UX professionals do?
• Divine proportions and Usability
• Agile Development Process
• Volunteering to perform UX-based tasks
• Building a personal brand
• How to prepare for a UX job?
• Preparing an “elevator pitch”
• Constructive criticism

Agenda Item: Conducting a brief workshop on Usability

Description of Discussion:

Mr. Suman Kumar conducted a brief workshop on UX. He asked and then directed the members in the audience to undergo a hands-on training on Usability. The training included:
• An exercise to find out usability and desirability of four leading mobile phone brands.
• A review of the IRCTC website to observe the balance between desirability and usability associated with the website.

Agenda Item: Building a stronger technical communications network

Description of Discussion

• Mr. Rajdeep Gupta (VP, STC-India Chapter) and Ms. Pratima Rajeev (from HTIPL) addressed the audience and stressed on building a stronger technical communications network.
• Ms. Rajeev gave an insight regarding the kind of tasks undertaken at Huawei.
• The audience were shown a promotional video on Huawei and its products by Ms. Rajeev
• Mr. Suman Kumar was felicitated on this occasion by Mr. Puneet and Ms. Rajeev on behalf of HTIPL.
• Mr. Rajdeep Gupta also felicitated Mr. Kumar on behalf of STC-India Chapter.