[ATTW-L] Introducing UX Research to Undergrads

[Hendrickson, Brian]

Thanks, everyone, for all the helpful suggestions. Lauren raises an excellent question (or makes an excellent suggestion) regarding a bib. If there isn't already something like this out there, I could imagine a really helpful resource that annotates UX resources from within and beyond TC in terms of their usefulness to teaching in TC contexts.

This list should keep me busy for the near future anyway!

Brian

Brian Hendrickson, PhD
Assistant Professor
Dept of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition
Roger Williams University
bhendrickson at rwu.edu<mailto:bhendrickson at rwu.edu>
Pronouns: he/him/his


On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 12:39 PM Emma J. Rose <ejrose at uw.edu<mailto:ejrose at uw.edu>> wrote:

Adding on to this already incredible list of suggestions.

For usability testing, I find Barnum's 2010 text Usability Testing Essentials incredible useful and students appreciate it the very clear way it breaks down the method(s). But I use it for a class that exclusively focuses on usability testing.

For UX, I also teach a similar class: multi-disciplinary, multi-major, different levels, with community-engaged projects (such a fun class to teach!).

We use UX Team of One by Leah Buley for a good process approach that talks about both how to do UX as a generalist and also how to get support and buy-in for the practice (which is especially helpful when working with community partners who might be new to UX). I also use the Sketching User Experiences Workbook by Greenberg et al, for lots of good exercises in practicing design. Students have responded positively to both texts.

Good luck and reach out if you want to chat more!

------
Emma Rose, PhD
pronouns: she/her

Assistant Professor
Writing Studies & Technical Communication
University of Washington | Tacoma

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Human Centered Design & Engineering
University of Washington | Seattle
ejrose at uw.edu<mailto:ejrose at uw.edu>



On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 6:36 AM Hendrickson, Brian <bhendrickson at rwu.edu<mailto:bhendrickson at rwu.edu>> wrote:
Dear List,

I'm curious to know what resources you use to teach undergrads (esp. non-majors) to conduct web usability research, or UX research in general.

I've mostly found texts that discuss general usability principles, such as handbooks for general audiences (e.g. Krug 2014) or introductory TC textbooks, but that don't go into much depth on methods. Barnum's (2002) Usability Testing and Research seems to be the most thorough instructional text on methodology we have in TC, but 16 years is a long time ago. I may be running up against what Chong (2016) identifies as a lack of explicitly pedagogical texts in TC concerning usability.

I'd love to hear from you if you have used these or other texts, and to what degree of success.

Some context: This spring, as part of an intermediate level special topics course I'm calling Community-based Writing in a Digital World, I'm taking on a community engagement project that involves developing web content/architecture for a police department's community relations bureau, which will further involve conducting UX research with community and police stakeholders to ensure that the web space facilitates partnership and trust building. Because it satisfies a gen ed requirement, I am likely to get students of all majors and at various levels of degree completion, which is why I'm pushing for very "usable" texts.

Thanks,

Brian Hendrickson, PhD
Assistant Professor
Dept of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition
Roger Williams University
bhendrickson at rwu.edu<mailto:bhendrickson at rwu.edu>
Pronouns: he/him/his
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