Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Theresa Putkey

Theresa Putkey — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:17:33 GMT

Could also illustrate how writing for web-based software and websites are different. Or pick one type of writing.

Theresa Putkey — Fri, 11 May 2007 22:34:55 GMT

I think this would be a good story, but you’d have to give really concrete ways of selling. So many times website designers say that their customers are too small for IA; potential customers say “I’m interested if it’s not expensive.” It’s quite frustrating that IAs don’t sell themselves to small and medium sized businesses – it leaves a lot of work to be done by those who look for work with smaller companies.

Theresa Putkey — Fri, 11 May 2007 22:48:05 GMT

I like the idea of selling documentation to product management, other managers, etc. and relating it to people who read this site. However, there are already a lot of articles on how to create good documentation.

Theresa Putkey — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:13:10 GMT

In all my networking, I’ve found a lot of IAs who don’t know many other IAs. But this is more human nature than IA nature: not to get out there into the palm-pressing when other things are more pressing, so to speak.

I also have a fear of being shallow – there are so many things to know, how can I know them with enough depth to be good enough? Yesterday I did a compilation of some IA job descriptions and found that the skill set required ran the gamut from business analysis to interaction design. How can you have depth with that kind of breadth?

Also, in all my non-IA community networking, I’ve found that most people don’t know what any of our titles mean. Right before I read this article, I was thinking about my new business cards and questioning whether I should put a job title on them. I use any skills to create usable products, and the most heavily used skills are communication skills (i.e. face to face discussions or email threads).

Theresa Putkey — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:32:42 GMT

I was talking with a colleague the other day who did about 30 user interviews and 20 stakeholder interviews and was having trouble collating the results. I think the steps for “Once I interview all these people, what do I do? I feel overwhelmed” are very helpful.

I used to work in tech support before going into usability (actually quite a good career path!). As a suggestion, I think it would be an awesome idea to ask that tech support people keep track of their calls in one week. They don’t need to do anything but have a sheet of paper and for every call write down the main words associated with that call. Then when you ask these surrogates for what are the top problems, they can refer back to this sheet… Just something to jog their memories, otherwise it just becomes one giant problem w/o any specific examples.

Theresa Putkey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:11:07 GMT

Rahel – thanks for the great case study. I liked the detail in how you managed the publication and appreciated how the article was down-to-earth, practical, and educational.

Why did the shirt have to be plaid, btw?

Theresa Putkey — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:54:12 GMT

I was involved in a QTUT last month. I didn’t think of the structure as you have outlined above, but basically set the same expectations. My project was smaller: 8 hours to test a website with three users. 8 is better than nothing. To get the most out of the testing, I suggested that the client sit in on the testing. Although I didn’t have access to recording software, I didn’t see much point in using it, either. It takes a long time to set up, test, review, and write up, and the site wasn’t that complicated. Plus they had done their user research before designing the site, so they just needed confirmation that they had reflected what the research told them.

I spent 1.5 hours setting expectations (this is going to be quick, you won’t hit on more subtle problems, the report will be quick and dirty, then worked on scenarios and the test script. Two people from the client sat in while I tested the user. It was definitely informal. I wrote up a bulleted list in Word.

Theresa Putkey — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:39:29 GMT

I did write this story…
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/using-technical