UW Research and Design Showcase

This session offers an opportunity to learn about the latest research conducted in technical communication at the University of Washington. Students working in groups and individually with UWTC faculty will present and discuss their research findings and design projects. Before and after the presentations, you will be able to meet the researchers and talk with them about their work; four of the student groups will give short presentations. 

This is a great opportunity to get insights that you can use in your own work. Much of this research is focused on "real-life" problems that technical communicators encounter in their day-to-day work.

A light buffet will be served from 6:00-7:00 PM. This is a great time to meet with your colleagues, job recruiters, and our speakers or to peruse the showcase.

The projects are described below.  

Mobile User Experience Ecosystem

Ariel van Spronsen and Carol Taylor; http://courses.washington.edu/mobileux/

What industry factors affect the mobile user experience? After a fairly exhaustive search of both academic and industry sources, we were unable to find a cohesive representation of the mobile ecosystem. The knowledge map Mobile User Experience Issues and the Mobile Ecosystem is the result of our efforts to create the missing representation. 

Mobile User-Experience: Overview of the Mobile-Technologies Domain

MobileUX research group

The mobile environment presents unique usability challenges and specialized requirements for information access and display. The Mobile User Experience (UX) Research Group examines the research areas and emerging technologies that hold the most promise for delivering a positive mobile UX. Areas of exploration include multi-modal interfaces and usability issues, the mobile UX ecosystem with its many technologies and players, mobile research methods and challenges, voice recognition and speech communication theory and adoption, location based services, content personalization through adaptive interfaces, alternative mobile interaction models, and a host of new technologies including mobile phones as third-screen players for data or multimedia.

QuikScan: Innovating the Way We Work with Information

Quan Zhou; http://students.washington.edu/qzhou/quikscan/

This poster presents an on-going dissertation research---QuikScan. It is an innovative document format that uses multiple within-document summaries and strategic highlighting to facilitate reading comprehension and information seeking. Solidly grounded in creative information design and rhetorical analysis, this project has been experimentally studying the effects of QuikScan. Several presentations have been made in STC, PSC, and TCAA events. Since then, the research has evolved with a fuller spectrum of design and a deeper understanding of QuikScan reading. This poster updates the results of our recent study and demonstrates the wide range of reading activities that can benefit from QuikScan. 

Transformations Research Group –

Mark Zachry and Mary Coney

This research group examines how technological changes are influencing (and influenced by) technical communication. Titled "Transformations: Technology, Theory, and Technical Communication," this group is comprised of six students, each of whom has conducted a literature review and is writing a bibliographic essay on topics including:

• Technical communication in Asia
• The role of technology in science rhetoric
• Author/reader authority in interactive media
• Real-world applications of activity theory
• Rhetoric and social change

Internet-Based Research

http://depts.washington.edu/intres/

The Internet-Based Research group (IBR), led by Professor Jan Spyridakis, conducts remote user studies to assess the effectiveness of various Web design features. UWTC students participating this year include doctoral students, Elisabeth Cuddihy and Kate Mobrand; Master's student, Edward Galore; and undergraduate, Steven Liu. The group will be presenting the results of their recently completed study of the effect of structural cues on users' behavior, comprehension, and perceptions of Web-based information. The group continues to refine WebLab UX, the software toolkit they have developed to support
Internet-based research. WebLab UX generates multiple experimental versions of Web sites, delivers Web-based surveys and comprehension tests, tracks users' navigational behaviors, and records data in an easily analyzable format. By studying large numbers of users interacting with informational Web sites in natural settings, the group aims to develop empirically-based guidelines for developers of informational Web sites that will facilitate comprehension and enhance the user experience.The group is currently investigating possible private sector and governmental partnerships.

Teaching decisions: What do engineering educators say?

Yi-Min Huang, Jessica Yellin, Rese, Jennifer Turns,

We are interested in studying engineering education from the perspectives of teaching decision making because we believe that there is a strong link between teaching decisions and critical issues in engineering education. The purpose of our current research is to explore how engineering educators make teaching related decisions within their classrooms and instructional practices. By understanding the processes of their teaching decision making, we can use decision making as a critical lens to understand their teaching practices and find ways to help improve their teaching.  We use a cognitive science methodology to investigate engineering educators thinking processes. In this presentation, we will showcase a range of engineering educators' teaching decision responses. 

Designing for Digital Inclusion: Investigating social networks within resource constrained environments

Emma Rose, Cynthia Putnam, and Gulay Birand

Our research group takes a radically inclusive approach to conceptualizing relevant user populations for information technology hardware, software, and services. We focus on issues of information and communications technologies in underserved communities nationally and globally. Over the past year, we have investigated social networks and mobile phones in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Our poster will emphasize several areas of our current work:

• the opportunities for design in resource constrained environments
• the development of new methodological approaches for research that
  emphasizes a contextualized understanding of users and needs
• broadening the concept of social networks
• leveraging technology that is appropriate in terms of cultural,
  infrastructure and resources

"This was a good assignment":  Using portfolio construction to support professional preparedness

Zhiwei Guan

Educating a person to enter a profession such as engineering or technical communication necessitates a focus on more than the collection of skills, concepts, and attitudes important to the profession.  A practicing professional also has 1) the type of coherent, integrated understanding that permits the skills, concepts and attitudes to be applied to workplace problems and 2) an identity that brings together personal and professional issues.  In this work, we are exploring how the construction of professional portfolios, and particularly the process of connecting school experiences to claims about professional preparedness, supports these additional educational goals.

QuikScan Feed

Matt Carthum

This poster presents an offshoot project of Quan Zhou's QuikScan dissertation research. QuikScan Feed is a process for using QuikScan summaries in conjunction with RSS feeds. The goal of this project is to develop a system for corporate settings where QuikScan is implemented. QuikScan Feed employs a series of easy to use templates that allow users to quickly create and upload QuikScanned documents and corresponding RSS feeds of QuikScan summaries.

BSTC Online Portfolio Projects

Jen Becker and Rosalinda Rosales

This poster presents two case studies of online portfolios, walking readers through the steps of creating and maintaining the websites and the information. The goal of these portfolios is to present artifacts that represent the writer's best work for colleagues and potential employers. These portfolios also include up-to-date resumes, personal statements, and brief statements
describing each artifact. Each case study provides unique ways of presenting information that is tailored to the writer.