Syllabus

Before UX : Ketchup was too thick to pour, especially out of a narrow-necked glass bottle. You had to turn it over and shake it or stick a knife up it. Heinz had a jingle that celebrated this bottle neck, "Anticipaaaaaation is making me wait." Before UX, technical writers (and marketers) had to accommodate users to the product, call bugs features, celebrate imperfections as quirks.

After UX : At some point, Heinz replaced the glass bottle with a plastic one that could be stored upside down and squeezed. No jingle required. The switch from glass to plastic might have been a purely economic decision (plastic is lighter and therefore cheaper to ship), but accommodating users can benefit a company in many ways. BTW, the upside down label signals how to use the package. Design qualities that indicate how something works are called affordances. No instructions required.

This class is for graduate students interested in exploring career options outside academia -- as corporate researchers or technical writers The word "writer" is a cultural holdover from pre-digital days. Tech writers still write, but they also need to know how to design text for different delivery methods, create how-to videos, infographics, and social media posts of all kinds. They need to be adept at prompt-crafting as well as editing other people's (and AI-generated) writing. Tech writers need an extremely broad and regularly updated skill set which includes research methods. -- and those interested in conducting student-centered composition research within academia. It requires no prior knowledge except for critical thinking and effective writing. Essentially it is a crash-course in social science methodology: questionnaires, interviews, onsite observations, remote observations, and persona development. I say crash course because we are not dealing with statistics and social science relies heavily on statistics. As you know, there are three kinds of research, quantitative -- which produces numbers, qualitative -- which produces narratives, and mixed -- which produces numbers-backed narratives. Business people prefer quantitative research because it seems more "robust," numbers don't lie, and so on. Quantitative methods rely on large numbers of participants and use statistics to create arguments. Qualitative research seems squishy, "soft," by comparison. Because UX is about experience and experience is by definition unique to an individual, UX's generalizations come in the form of personas, fictional individuals (simulations) that are composed of data derived from specific groups of users. UX is mixed methods, in other words. As such it is closer to Anthropology and Phenomenology than Economics and Sociology. (If you know nothing of any of those disciplines, don't worry about it.) UX relies on small numbers of participants because interviewing and observing are expensive and time consuming and produce information that can't be statistically generalized but which can nevertheless be informative.

Generally speaking, technical writers translate technical information for non-technical audiences. In the pre-digital past (prior to the 2000s), they mostly wrote user manuals, illustrated step-by-step how-to guides. Because the manual was written post-design, any imperfections a technical writer might discover systematically using the product in order to explain how to use it had to be glossed over or explained away. User-feedback came in sporadically post-production, via call centers and letters of complaint. Negative sentiment generates far more feedback and garners far more, and more widespread, attention than positive. There's an old joke: a five-year-old astonishes their parents when they speak for the first time ever. "The porridge is cold." "What!" "You can talk!" they say in unison. "Yes." "Why have you never spoken before?" "Up until now everything was ok." This feedback was often ignored on the grounds that the engineers knew best. Any problems users encountered were dismissed as "user error" and responded to with a soto voce, "Read the f#$%ing manual." The academic equivalent is, "Read the f#$%ing syllabus." Over the course of the last 20 years or so, user data and user feedback have become much easier to acquire and harder to ignore. "Smart" appliances like Amazon's Alexa and Samsung's "Family Hub" spontaneously generate and transmit data. Because digital documents can track user behavior, they can generate user data much like smart appliances. Digital texts can also receive user feedback in the form of comments, questionnaire responses, and chatbot interactions. The power, if not always necessarily the value, of user feedback is greatly amplified by social media. Companies frequently engage in social listening, tracking public opinions expressed in product reviews, on message boards, and via tools like X (formerly Twitter) and the like.

To gather, organize, and make the best use of all this data and feedback, many businesses -- Amazon, Facebook, MailChimp, Twitter -- have research divisions staffed by people with advanced degrees from a wide range of academic disciplines who have job titles that have the word "user" (or customer) in them.

The first user-research discipline was usability studies. Researchers observed clients using the product and noted successes and failures. They then took that information back to the engineers who re-designed the product to accommodate observed behavior. Usability is relatively objective in the sense that it doesn't distinguish among users. Because all users are assumed the same, subjective experience doesn't matter. Ideally, the product is so easy to use, so "intuitive", that all users have the same experience, which is focusing on the task and ignoring the tool. Ideally, just looking at an object tells a person how to use it. . Whenever an object doesn't signal how it is used, you have a usability failure. Whenever it signals the opposites of how to use it, you get what's called a Norman door:

Named after Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things. It is important to realize the "intuitive" designs often favor default ways of being and can inadvertently disadvantage people who have physical or mental differences. From that perspective, the most usable door opens when a person approaches. Such affordances are often more expensive to build, install, and maintain. But they are the apex of usable.

While easy to use products get purchased, they don't inspire #buzz or fandom or even brand loyalty. For that the product has to inspire joy. To inspire joy you need to know a great deal about your intended users, about what they do, how they do it, how they live, where they live, their fears and aspirations, who they think they are, and who they wish they were. You need to know a great deal about a person to see the world -- or at least your product -- the way they do. To gain user-insights you need to spend time with users, as many as you can, watching, recording, asking questions, testing theories, learning what it's like to be them, essentially. UX is about empathy and understanding and insight. It's about people more than it is about products, although of course sales fund the research.

User-Experience Research (UX) is applied Ethnography. According to Observing the User Experience, when the LEGO Group was losing customers at a business-threatening rate, the CEO, "Knudstorp turned to user research. Over the course of a year, LEGO sent user researchers -- who they called "anthros" -- to observe families around the world." See also Practical Ethnography. It seeks to understand what different kinds of people think and feel while using a product, not just their satisfactions and frustrations but how they relate to and identify with it. The goal of UX is to improve the experience of using the product (or service) in ways that generate repeat sales.

UX-research involves many different methods for acquiring and analyzing user data and user feedback. Each requires expertise. In a large company committed to learning from customers, each method might be provided by a single individual or even a team, but in smaller companies and those less customer-focused, one person might have to perform multiple tasks. There are also people who freelance, taking a UX job for a limited time and doing all of the parts themselves. (See, The User Experience Team of One). Even if you end up working with a team, understanding something of each part gives you a better sense of how what you are doing fits with everything else going on around you so it makes sense to learn something about each expertise.

UX is a relatively new discipline and while there are certificates and MAs, often in Human Computer Interaction, there is no one credential. Those of us who study Rhetoric have had a long-standing interest in audience-centered messaging. As far back as Plato, we've been interested in discovering the types of mind, the types of speech, and the way each type of mind responds to each type of speech. Plato called this study psychagogy, roughly translated as thought leader, literally mind or even soul leader. Aristotle used the word rhetoric and offered audience-centered rather than individual-centered advice -- young people are like this, old people are like that, thus when persuading youth use these arguments in these ways and with elders, use these this way, etc. The first rhetoric programs in the United States were created at Engineering schools, like Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, because Engineers have always understood that conveying complex information to the general public increases funding. UX is kin to Rhetoric.

The first 8 weeks of this class are synchronous online. The goal is give you an overview of User-Experience Research practices and concepts. For the last seven weeks you are either working in a group or on your own on a UX project, culminating in a multimodal case study. During those seven weeks you will blog weekly progress reports. If you want advice along the way, I am available either vie Webex or Teams or face-to-face. Please don't hesitate to consult me.

This website is primarily static, with a couple of interactive pieces we will use in the first couple weeks. There is no login. You will turn in your assignments via sites.gsu.edu and receive grades via iCollege.

1. Knowledge of and experience with conducting questionnaires, interviews, and observations in a User-Experience Research context.
2. How to create and present personas.
3. How to design and create multimodal case studies.

There is no textbook, but there are many books that might help you open yourself to the possibilities of user-experience research. For a list of some, click Books on the menu bar.

If you are fond of textbooks, I think Observing The User Experience: A Practical Guide to User Research might be worthwhile.

We need to agree on how each assignment will be weighted. I suggest 5% of the final grade for the first 8 assignments, 10% for the 9th assignment, 10% for the 5 weekly progress reports combined (weeks 10 - 14), leaving 40% of the final grade for the big project. Thoughts?

1. You need to setup a blog. I want you to blog about UX at least once a week, and I want you to turn in your weekly assignments via your blog.
2. Blog post about UX case studies
3. Blog post field notes
4. Blog post review of screen recording software
5. Blog post about the usability test you did
6. Blog post your questionnaire
7. Blog post your persona(s)
8. Blog post your interview(s)
9. Book summary and review
10. Blog post weekly progress report regarding your big project
11. Blog post a link to your case study or upload it to your blog if that will work

This is a graduate class. I assume you will attend and participate in the online sessions -- on camera. If you have to miss one, I assume you have a good reason. You are expected to write a blog weekly regardless.

I use AI regularly, to supplement and accelerate my writing processes. I clearly identify whatever AI-generated text I use. Prompt-crafting or prompt-engineering is a critical skill. One all writing teachers need to incorporate into their classes and all writers need to learn how to use effectively. So I encourage you to explore and use AIs. It goes without saying that we would never pass off ai-generated text as our own.

Specific criteria will be discussed in class for each assignment prior to the due date.

The letter scale and quality points used for major assignments are below.

A+             4.3                             C+             2.3

A               4.0                             C               2.0

A-              3.7                             C-              1.7

B+             3.3                             D               1.0

B               3.0                             F                0

B-              2.7          

George Pullman

• hours: upon request
• office: 2424 25 Park Place
• email: gpullman@gsu.edu
• phone: don't bother, email works better
• website: www.gpullman.com

According to the GSU student handbook

Your professor expects you to:

• Be informed about instructors' policies, which are presented in the course syllabus, as well as the policies of the Georgia State University on-campus Student Handbook.
• Attend all classes, except when emergencies arise. If health and weather allow, your instructor will be present and on time for every scheduled class meeting. You should be, too.
• Be an active participant in class, taking notes and asking appropriate questions. Your involvement will benefit you and your classmates.
• Treat the instructor and fellow students with courtesy. Refrain from any behaviors that may distract others. You expect to be treated with tolerance and respect and to enjoy a learning environment free of unnecessary distractions. Your classmates deserve the same.
• Cultivate effective study strategies. Being an effective student is not instinctive. Use your study time wisely, seek help from the instructor when you need it, and avail yourself of resources provided by the university.
• Study course material routinely after each meeting. Stick to a regular study schedule and avoid cramming. Submit finished assignments on time and do not postpone working on them.
• Accept the challenge of collegiate studying, thinking, and learning. Anticipate that the level and quantity of work in some courses will exceed your prior experiences. If you have significant responsibilities besides your studies, such as work and family, set realistic academic goals and schedules for yourself. Select an academic load whose work demands do not exceed your available time and energy.
• Let no temptation cause you to surrender your integrity.

• Student code of conduct
• Academic honesty policy
• Disability services

This section is intended as a brief on motivation theory in general rather than as an effort to motivate you to do well in this class. Ultimately motivation comes from within, so if you want to do well, you will need to self-motivate. From a rhetorical perspective, if you need to motivate long-term behavioral change, in yourself or someone else, the information below will prove useful.

If you are going to succeed at learning something that takes time and effort to learn (the guitar, long distance running, Go or Chess, rhetoric or philosophy or a second or third language), where time is measured either in months of intense effort or years of sustained, high-level effort, you need 7 things: Desire, conviction, persistence, opportunity, sacrifice, a coach, and a plan.

1) Desire: you have to want it. Typically desire comes from identity and identification. If you think you were born to run marathons or read Homer in the original, success will be a more natural path because you will be affirming your identity by pursuing your goal. You will practice for hours on your own because doing so makes you feel more yourself than anything else does. In addition to feeling like a butterfly at larval stage, you need to have a vivid image of what kind of butterfly you desire to become. You need to identify with someone who already is: a hero, a mentor, a close family member. If you have no role model, you won't have a clear sense of how to be what it is you want to become, and thus your learning will lack focus down range. So get a role model. If you don't know one personally, imagine you do while you look around for a real one. Your imaginary role model might be a famous person who you want to meet and maybe even compete with some day.

2) Sacrifice: If you have a casual interest in something and you meet with immediate success, you may imagine you are "naturally" good at it and since being good at something is pleasant, you will likely continue, thinking that you have found your way to be. Early success, however, can be misleading. When you don't understand how something is done it looks easier than it is. Novices often confuse luck with skill and mistake a success for talent. The transition from novice to expert takes a long time, even for the gifted. Inevitably joy becomes work. Performance plateaus exist. Once you cease to improve, once you experience your first loss or setback, you have to decide whether to embrace the pain and frustration and the fear of failure or cut your losses and move on. You are more likely to embrace the pain if you can't imagine alternative ways of being. Thus, oddly enough, a lack of imagination, a one-track mind, can be crucial to success. But tunnel vision doesn't guarantee success. For every success there are many couldbes and wannabes toiling forever on the precipice. I think this existential dilemma, should I stay or should I go, is why so many people are content with good enough. To become great so often means giving up too much while risking getting nothing in return.

3) Conviction: you have to want to succeed, but you also have to believe you can succeed. Identity is critical here as well. If your identity is wrapped up in the pursuit of success, and your identity isn't fragile, you will focus intensely and test yourself without fear or hesitation because you fervently believe you will succeed in the end. A role model who seems to have come from circumstances like your own helps. "They did it; so can I." This is (partially) why entering the family business is a time honored form of education. And why poverty is so often inherited.

4) Persistence: for every person who succeeds at something difficult there are many who showed equal promise and desire who failed. You have to overcome performance plateaus, adversity, boredom, and compelling distractions. Don't confuse smart with quick. Learn to embrace tedium, frustration. Learn to question each apparent accomplishment and then raise the bar. Never settle. Never rest. Keep putting yourself out there. Fall, get up, fall again.

5) Opportunity: Among those who don't succeed are also the merely unlucky. Luck plays a far greater role in success than we care to believe. It isn't enough to be good; you need the opportunity to show someone whose attention matters how good you might get given the necessary resources and support. As someone once said, "no one remembers your name just for working hard."

6) A plan: low initial bar, measurable outcomes, near-term incremental goals on an unbounded path. If you wake up one day and your jeans don't fit and you say, I'm going to get fit, chances are you won't because the goal is vague (what's fit really mean?) and you don't have a plan (what do you do to get fit?). Even if you set a specific goal, lose 5 pounds, you still need a plan, a path to the goal. You will succeed if as you suck in your tummy and pull at your jeans you say, "Today I'm going to walk up three flights of stairs." If you do, and the next day you say, "I'm going to make a healthy low-call lunch and eat that instead of going out," and you also walk up three flights of stairs, you are on your way. Fewer calories, a few more flights, day by day. Drop a few pounds; get a bit stronger (5 flights of stairs). Once your jeans fit, set a new measurable goal that will help keep your jeans fitting.

7) A coach: timely, vivid feedback. A good coach won't let you fail but won't let you luxuriate in success either. He or she will always be encouraging and correcting you. Eventually you may internalize a restlessness, a deeply felt need for continual improvement. For high achievers, good is never good enough. Happy high achievers are inspired by that drive. Miserable high achievers are plagued by it. Focus on the process of improvement and let the outcome be what it will be.

Take aways

• Question your identity: what kind of butterfly does your caterpillar become?
• Set specific, measurable, obtainable goals: set the first bar low, but raise it quickly, always just almost out of reach; don't accept limits; don't treat setbacks as existential threats.
• Get an idol, an image of the perfection you seek (likely a person, but perhaps a specific performance, or even a thing)
• Get a coach / mentor
• Learn to focus intensely and fearlessly over longer and longer periods of time
• Abandon FOMO: you have one goal; nothing else matters

This syllabus represents only a plan. Deviations may be necessary.