 | American Psychological Association | |
|---|---|---|
 | Usability Professionals Association | |
 | Human Factors & Ergonomics Society | |
Usernomics can help your company to develop hard copy and online Documentation.
The Documentation DilemmaDocumentation is often the last thing that a product designer thinks about. Invariably, the assumption is that a product is "intuitive" and needs no explanation. Usually, it is only after new users provide feedback to the contrary, does the need for documentation of some kind becomes evident. A product's usability, acceptance, and marketability are often dependent on the user feeling that it is easy to learn and use. Good documentation increases the understanding and subsequent comfort level with a product, which translates into product acceptance and use.
Our RoleUsernomics can assist your company with documentation in the form of hard copy, online documents, online help, and quick start guides. We can help to make your product usable, effective, and accepted by end users.
We apply a rigorous and systematic technique when developing documentation - Instructional Systems Design (ISD). This process culminates in empirical testing to ensure that the document achieves the intended result. Our documentation is distinguished by our additional expertise in designing user-centered products and procedures.
Usernomics' Instructional Psychologists and Writers focus on the instructional integrity of each document, while our Engineering Psychologists focus on designing usable products and procedures. This permits us to view documentation as part of a cycle for making products and jobs usable: user-friendly design / user knowledge / user productivity / user acceptance.
Documentation is usually not associated with User-Centered Design. That concept is most often applied to product design. However, many documents focus on the product rather than the user, making the document difficult to use. A good document is one that makes the product easy to learn and permits rapid lookup for questions and answers. We apply user-centered techniques to all of the documentation that we develop for hardware and software.
We also specialize in Usability Testing to ensure that your product works as expected for the end-user. Our usability testing takes the guesswork out of the design process. This empirical testing of all documentation greatly increases the likelihood of product acceptance by end-users.
We are happy to apply our expertise to projects varying from high tech consumer products to larger systems... computer software and hardware to aircraft and automobiles.
Please contact us if you would like further information or wish to discuss our consulting services.