Review of Human Factors for Technical Communicators (Paperback)

If you do any kind of writing for your job buy this book and read it coverto cover.With that said my review follows:

There are so many positivesin this book that I will list the negatives first, there are few and veryminor at that.

The cover has got to go.It does not represent the depthand wealth of the information inside.To be honest, it looked so poorlythought out and old, I felt the contents of the book must be too. Thankfully, I dropped my bias and was very pleasantly surprized.

Theother negative may be my own personal preference, but I like the footnotedetail at the bottom of the page, so when I see it I don't have to scoot tothe end of the chapter to see what it is.This is how good the book was, Iread all the footnotes and references too.

Marlana Coe has created a bookthat I hope not only do Technical writers from all over read, but HumanFactors professionals too. As a fanatic-pursuer of documentation meetingits goal to communicate, this book says it all.The usability measurementon documentation is whether or not it allows the author to communicate tothe reader and Marlana Coe shows you just how to do that.In fact, sheshows you while doing that herself.

I bought this book because as a HumanFactors professional, I find we do not practice what we preach.We reviewa product and come up with wonderful ideas to make it better and thenproceed to hide that in a document that is not geared for the reader. Manytechnical reports, even the ones that only have a small group of customers,don't meet those customers needs.There are no pictures, tables anddiagrams and worst of all no logical organization for the reader to createa structure around the information. The documents are geared for thewriter to regurgitate data, not for the reader to absorb it.Granted thisis not all, but too much of a majority in a group of people that shouldknow better. Most human factors professional know, how to increaseusability of everyone else's product but their own: the technical reportthey create on products they review.This book bridges that gap, for HFprofessionals especially.Yes, I'm including myself in this category (Idid buy the book after all).

For all the rest of you, this gives youreasons for all the practices that good technical writers should use. Fromthe amount of white space to use to the number of fonts and colors.Thereare also suggestions on organization and on construction of thesedocuments.One section discussed content and the importance of context ofusage.This is something, I never really thought of that much.(Oops).

Another thing the author has done was fashion a book on atechnical subject and made it readable.This is something she also coversin her book. Her language is natural and she has not fallen into the trapof using technical words or ones that may escape the average readersvocabulary.

In a word: Fantastic!

Product Description
A crash course in human factors theory and practice for technical communicators

If you're a technical writer, technical editor, documentation manager, user-interface designer, usability tester, or any other type of technical communication professional, you've probably found yourself becoming more and more involved in the development, design, and testing of technical communication products. In order to handle your expanded responsibilities effectively you need a solid grounding in human factors, the art and science of designing for people. And now this book gives it to you-fast.

First, expert Marlana Coe takes you on a fascinating tour of the burgeoning science of human factors. In terms that you can understand, she explains all about the psychology and physiology of how users access, learn, and remember information; the impact of colors, shapes, and patterns; learning styles; approaches and obstacles to problem solving; action structures; and more. And, with the help of real-life examples of various technical communication products, she vividly demonstrates what works, what doesn't, and why.

Then, she shows you how to apply what you've learned to create the best technical communication products possible. You'll find out how to:

• Analyze users' needs and learning styles
• Get and interpret user feedback and create partnerships with users
• Select the most effective layouts, colors, fonts, and graphics
• Build better navigational infrastructures
• Develop content that gives users everything they need to quickly identify and resolve problems
• Test and improve your product's usability

From the Publisher
Designed for those who need to learn (and quickly!) the human factors basics that were not part of their initial education or training. Commences with an introduction to human factors theory using easy-to-understand language with examples applicable to technical communicators. The latter half demonstrates how to translate the theory into practice by analyzing and learning from end-users; applying color, graphics, different layout and type designs, online help screens, graphical-user interfaces, icons and normal messages that appear on a computer screen or in a manual.

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