The EMBOSS Documentation Project

[José R. Valverde]

On Mon, 24 Jun 2002 22:04:41 +0200
"Catherine Letondal" <letondal at pasteur.fr> wrote:

> 
> Damian Counsell wrote:
> 
> > What do users want from our documentation system?  
> 
> Ask them, or rather look at them.
> 
> The best way to know is to make a few user studies around the current documentation
> system - not that many studies are necessary IMHO (I don't fully agree with Jose in his 
> previous message that you really need a HCI research project for this, although it could of
> course be very interesting).
> A very efficient and light technique is testing by pair (see for instance
> http://www.cs.umd.edu/~zzj/Codiscov.htm) with a scenario or a precise 
> task + thinking-aloud method. This is a way to learn a lot about what should be done
> in a few time. It brings more information than a questionnaire.
> 
Agreed.

At any rate, it should be users who answer. There are plenty of methods that have proved
useful in dealing with users. Any of them would do. Thinking aloud is indeed one of the
most powerful methods.

An HCI project may be overkill, but still someone with an interest or knowledge in HCI design
would be helpful. And from my very humble, lowly laying, low profile point of view, the more
open the original approach the better. We might get some surprises about our assumptions on
users.

				j
--
Jose R. Valverde
EMBnet/CNB