Communication Design Quarterly
150 articlesDecember 2025
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Visualizing Flint Lead Contamination Risks: Building a Critical Rhetorical Risk Visualization Ecology ↗
Abstract
This study examines the role of risk visualizations in public health communication through an analysis of the MyWater-Flint Map and Flint Service Line Map , developed during the Flint water crisis. Applying a newly proposed social justice-oriented framework for risk visual design, the study evaluates these maps' effectiveness in communicating risk through dimensions of accessibility, accountability, ethics, productive usability, hybrid collectivity, open systems, and circulation. Findings highlight the importance of community participation in the production and dissemination of risk visualizations. This work sheds light on visual risk communication theory, professional practice, and technical communication instruction.
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Review of "Document Design: From Process to Product in Professional Communication By Derek G. Ross and Miles A. Kimball," Ross, D. G., & Kimball, M. A. (2025). <i>Document design: From process to product in professional communication</i> (2nd ed.). SUNY Press. ↗
Abstract
For those like me who were eagerly awaiting the publication of the second edition of Document Design: From Process to Product in Professional Communication , you will not be disappointed! The new edition exceeds my expectations for updated content and examples—while staying true to the original focus on design theory and principles in practice. It balances foundational aspects of visual rhetoric and usability, while providing new insights on digital technologies and production.
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Abstract
As Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) adopts User Experience (UX) methods, gaps persist in integrating UX-specific knowledge and practices into curricula. This article advocates for Conversation Design (CxD) as a crucial yet overlooked intersection of TPC and UX. CxD focuses on creating human-centered interactions for chatbots, voice assistants and other conversational interfaces, aligning well with TPC's rhetorical foundations in audience, purpose, and context. Integrating CxD into TPC curricula equips students for emerging industry demands and drives academic innovation. The article defines CxD, examines its relevance to TPC, offers instructional strategies, and presents a course-based case study as a curricular model.
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Review of "Feminist Technical Communication: Apparent Feminisms, Slow Crisis, and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster by Erin Clark," Clark, E. (2023) <i>Feminist technical communication: Apparent feminisms, slow crisis, and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.</i> Utah State University Press. ↗
Abstract
In Feminist Technical Communication , Erin Clark both articulates and demonstrates an apparent feminist lens on the idea of slow crisis. She does this through a case study of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster (DHD), the 2008 oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico in which the lack of clear answers on health impacts demonstrates a critical need for transparency. By tracing DHD through a feminist lens and under the realm of crisis management, Clark raises important questions about what we mean when we talk about efficiency, how we define crisis, and how critical these questions are to the reconsideration of technical communication as neutral or objective. Her primary argument focuses on her theoretical contribution of apparent feminism that works to acknowledge and bring to light the need for explicitly feminist practices. Through Feminist Technical Communication , Clark provides scholars, practitioners, and community members with a new approach to crisis and risk communication.
September 2025
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Review of "Queer Techné: Bodies, Rhetoric, and Desire in the History of Computing by Patricia Fancher," Fancher P. (2024). <i>Queer techné: Bodies, rhetoric, and desire in the history of computing.</i> National Council of Teachers of English. ↗
Abstract
Queer Techné: Bodies, Rhetoric and Desire in the History of Computing is a little book doing big things. Author Patricia Fancher presents a well-theorized recovery of both queer lives and the lives of women in the history of computing, something of great import to scholars in technical and professional communication (TPC). Fancher engages with queer theory, rhetoric, technical communication, historiography, archival studies, mathematics, computers, and engineering, resulting in a robust interdisciplinary work. At the center of the book is Alan Turing, a pioneering mathematician and gay man, but just as important are the people around him—his queer community and the women of the University of Manchester Computer Lab. Fancher uses queer and embodied techné to explore these communities and the writing that occurred within them. Through this, she presents a case that pushes back against popular narratives of Alan Turing as a solitary genius while also bringing forward the embodied human presence in computing and TPC.
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Abstract
This summer my professional life was marked by a number of exciting changes. In addition to assuming the role of editor in chief of CDQ and producing my first issue, I stepped down from a longterm role with the editorial team at Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. In a bittersweet note, I received (and gave) a multitude of well wishes to the amazing colleagues and collaborators I had at Colorado State University, including Sue Doe, Lisa Langstraat, Tobi Jacobi, Todd Ruecker, Sarah Cooper, Chad Hoffman, Tiffany Lipsey, Dinaida Egan, and Meg Suter, while I started a new role as Chair of the Department of Professional and Public Writing at the University of Rhode Island. It was a summer full of packing, unpacking, painting—and new processes, policies, and people. Throughout this moment, I spent a great deal of time reflecting on this change. For instance, I reflected on what CDQ means to the fields of communication and user experience design (CD/UX), technical and professional communication (TPC), and writing and rhetoric studies (WRS). Similarly, I reflected on my editorial philosophy and how I will shape and alter it now that I've been entrusted with serving as steward of CDQ. In this opening editorial, I remark on three themes that emerged while contemplating these changes: gratitude, care, and resilience.
June 2025
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From Tactical Technical Communication to Infrastructural Writing: The Role of User Enfranchisement in a Rogue Street Design Manual ↗
Abstract
Grassroots organizations often struggle to balance short-term fixes with long-term goals. Technical communicators supporting these under-resourced groups face a similar challenge: they must navigate between short-term tactical communication and the development of resilient, socially durable writing infrastructures. This article proposes user enfranchisement as a way for grassroots organizations to make quick, tactical interventions while simultaneously building the infrastructure to make strategic, long-term changes within their sphere of influence. Enfranchising tactics may be understood as rhetorical maneuvers that provide immediate, albeit provisional, access to participation within an institution or system, giving individuals agency and building a foundation for systemic change. Drawing on the case study of a street design manual created for urban areas, the article demonstrates how user enfranchisement: performs boundary/identity work, is intended to be conspicuous, expands the agential capacity of the user by building the social capital of the communicator, and serves as a bridge to longer-term infrastructural strategies with the capacity to create change in the world.
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Review of "UX Writing: Designing User-Centered Content by Jason C. K. Tham, Tharon Howard, and Gustav Verhulsdonck," Tham, J. C. K., Howard, T., & Verhulsdonck, G. (2024). <i>UX writing: Designing User-Centered Content</i> (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003274414 ↗
Abstract
In working to put into practice the user-centered philosophies that are presented within the pages of UX Writing: Designing User-Centered Content , this book is worth reading, dog-earing, marking up, and possibly rereading depending on interest in learning more about any facet of UX writing/experience. Why? The short answer is that the authors, Tham, Howard, and Verhulsdonck, thoughtfully and strategically kick the book off with a basic yet necessary definition and perspective of user experience (UX) writing that works to set the stage for what UX writing really is and what influence it has on technical communication.
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Review of "User Experience Research and Usability of Health Information Technology by Jessica Lynn Campbell, PhD," Campbell, J. L. (2024). <i>User Experience Research and Usability of Health Information technology.</i> CRC Press. ↗
Abstract
In User Experience Research and Usability of Health Information Technology , Jessica Lynn Campbell offers a guide on the design and implementation of usability studies to improve the user experience with health information technology (HIT). HIT is a broad and growing category, which includes applications such as telemedicine, electronic health records, and electronic communications between healthcare providers and patients. Given the increasing use of HIT, this is a welcome resource for both researchers and practitioners interested in improving user experiences and, ultimately, positive health outcomes. Campbell brings strong professional experience in the healthcare field, having worked in digital marketing, technical communication, and content creation roles. She is also an accomplished teacher and researcher within the technical communication and user experience disciplines. She draws on this diverse background to create a text intended for use by both academic scholars and healthcare practitioners.
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Abstract
In this article, we answer questions about user experiences and responses to an augmented reality (AR) app that represents "real" animals that users can photograph with themselves or in their world. We analyze user interview data and photography to see if and how participants think about care for these animals after playing the app. We found that participants only discussed care in regard to information presented to them outside of the photography mechanic and often created distancing narratives when using the photography mechanic. In response to these findings, we present design takeaways for future AR designers and potential applicability of our method to the field. Additionally, we present the methods that we developed in this study for more general AR photography research.
March 2025
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Articulating Science: Knowledge Translation as a Methodology for Scientific and Technical Communication Research ↗
Abstract
In their 2019 special issue for Technical Communication Quarterly , St. Amant and Graham enjoined science and technical communication researchers to consider more durable and portable methods. Such methods would be considered valid across disciplines and able to move knowledge to various stakeholders to demonstrate the contributions of scientific and technical communication research. We review a framework called knowledge translation to highlight its dependence on technical communication skills and then articulate it with science and technical communication epistemology to meet St. Amant and Graham's criteria for science and technical communication research to become more durable and portable.
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Review of "User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice by Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook," Crane, K., & Cook, K. C. (Eds.). (2023). User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice. University Press of Colorado. ↗
Abstract
Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook's edited collection on User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice offers case studies in technical and professional communication (TPC) pedagogy that premise around user experience (UX) design as an integrated and proactive academic practice. TPC has a rich history of UX-specific scholarship that focuses on creating holistic user experiences and conceptions such as experience architecture (Potts, 2014), design as advocacy (Rose, 2016), and participatory design (Muller, 2009). These are consistently weaved throughout the book. Crane and Cook define UX as a "theory and practice that emphasizes the need for functional products that integrate the users' needs and experiences" (p. 10). This collection features exploratory studies that discuss key methods and approaches for facilitating UX-inspired curricular design by framing student-users as co-creators in the process.
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Abstract
Tables, one of the most familiar forms of data visualization, are often put to use as a popular workaround for laying out pages in word processing programs. This article illustrates examples of friction, compatibility , and congruence between accepted guidance for designing effective tables in Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) and widely adopted accessibility standards outlined by the largest international software vendors and non-profit organizations. While acknowledging critiques in critical disability studies and in TPC of standards-based approaches to accessibility, we argue that adherence to standards offers a starting point for redressing the inaccessibility created by some TPC pedagogical practices. Navigating these departures and overlaps is important because designing effective data visualizations, laying out pages, and creating accessible documents are core competencies in technical communication that instantiate deeply held professional and disciplinary commitments to creating usable and ethical documents.
December 2024
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Review of "Amplifying Voices in UX: Balancing Design and User Needs in Technical Communication by Amber L. Lancaster and Carie S.T. King (Eds.)," Lancaster, A. L., & King, C. S. T. (Eds.). (2024). Amplifying voices in UX: Balancing design and user needs in technical communication. SUNY Press. ↗
Abstract
In Amplifying Voices in UX, a diverse group of scholars and practitioners come together to explore different aspects of user experience (UX) with a focus on inclusivity and social justice. This book moves beyond conventional UX frameworks, presenting innovative pedagogical strategies and methodologies that highlight empathy, accessibility, and the importance of considering marginalized voices in design. The authors delve into areas often overlooked in mainstream UX discourse, offering new perspectives on how to create more inclusive and impactful user experiences.
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Are Academia and Industry Listening to Each Other? A Citation Analysis of UX Research Methods Resources ↗
Abstract
Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) has been facing concerns of viability, in both its relationship with industry and its ability to build a relevant and valid body of research. TPC's disconnection with industry may be reflected in its relationship to UX as well, despite both fields' shared values. To better understand how TPC and User Experience (UX) are relating to each other, we conducted a citation analysis of a sample of SIGDOC papers and a sample of Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) practitioner articles focused on research methods. The SIGDOC papers tended to cite TPC sources, while the NN/g articles cited no TPC, but did cite disciplines such as HCI and Psychology. The findings point to opportunities for TPC to improve its connection and influence beyond academia.
September 2024
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Review of "Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication by Samuel Stinson and Mary Le Rouge," Stinson, S., & Le Rouge, M. (Eds.). (2022). <i>Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication.</i> Routledge. ↗
Abstract
Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication , edited by Samuel Stinson and Mary Le Rouge, is a timely collection of essays addressing the ways that humans conceptualize and interact with their environment when attempting to communicate the dangers of crises---such as climate change and COVID-19. Explicitly responding to the work of Jeffrey Grabill and Michelle Simmons (e.g., in their seminal 1998 essay, "Toward a Critical Rhetoric of Risk Communication"), this collection offers a broad variety of lenses for thinking about humans' relationships to their surroundings, especially while communicating environmental risk. The 14 chapters in this volume apply methodologies including rhetorical and discourse analysis, ethnography, integrated risk communication, and antiracist framing to topics ranging from university communications about the pandemic to groundwater pollution to upcycled art installations, in the process complicating traditional understandings of risk as something that exists "'out there,' independent of our minds and cultures, waiting to be measured" (Slovic, 1999, p. 690). Considered broadly, the collection offers human bodies and ecological impact as more effective barometers for risk than abstract calculations; individual chapters offer heuristics grounded in human experience or environmental considerations, along with discussion questions and assignments for use in classroom settings. The diversity of topics and methodologies represented ensure that the collection offers something of interest to most scholars and practitioners of risk communication, environmental communication, or embodiment in technical communication.
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Abstract
Over the course of my friendship with Dr. Halcyon Lawrence, I would often spend weekday evenings completing a mundane chore like washing dishes or feeding the cat. I would then hear my phone's alert for an incoming text message: "I need company. Are you working tonight?" Within 30 minutes or so Halcyon and I were on Zoom, cameras off, and nothing displayed on screen but our login names. Other times I'd receive a text like "I need your advice. Do you have time?" and we convened over the phone. When we talked, answers to our mutual question "How was your day?" prompted stories, and those stories led to musings and reflections. When I became befuddled when an assignment would flop or disappointed by a flat discussion, Halcyon gently queried, "So what were you trying to do?" or "Why do you think that activity didn't go well?" Her responses always reoriented me. When venting was no longer productive, we teased apart the problem, speculating what skill or knowledge students needed but had not sufficiently developed. These conversations often gave me enthusiasm for a new pedagogical approach or revealed insights about the gaps in our teaching and our students' learning. In the months since Halcyon's passing, I miss most acutely these nightly conversations about what was happening in our classrooms. My goal in this essay is to underscore the fact that part of Halcyon's legacy as a social justice-oriented technical communication scholar is her ethos as a teacher and collaborator who cared capaciously about student learning and the development of teaching practices and assignments.
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Abstract
Have you ever wondered how a researcher from the periphery can gain an enduring foothold in the pantheon of researchers from the center? This essay will attempt to answer that question. Halcyon Lawrence was a researcher, writer, and professor from the Global South who has made a mark on a community of technical communication scholars, writers, researchers, and professors with her widely discussed research articles dealing with the pros and cons, perils and promises, boon and bane of speech recognition tools and technology. Lawrence's research explores the thickets of speech recognition and proposes strategic and revisionary measures toward neutralizing the lopsided corpora of speech recognition software, vaporware, and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology. To crystalize her contributions to justice, data justice, and racial-linguistic justice, I chose a chapter, "Siri Discipline," she (2021) wrote for the book Your Computer is on Fire (Mullaney et al, 2021). My essay highlights how her ideas have gained more traction in relation to the current disruption of the AI revolution (Gopal, 2020). That disruption is often exemplified through ChatGPT, a platform that shows how Lawrence's core insight from "Siri Discipline" can have a direct bearing on normative frameworks being developed to address burgeoning challenges ushered in by the AI revolution.
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Review of "Privacy matters: Conversations about surveillance in and beyond the classroom by Estee Beck and Les Hutchinson Campos," Beck E, & Hutchinson Campos, L. (Eds.). (2020). <i>Privacy Matters: Conversations about surveillance in and beyond the classroom.</i> Utah State University Press ↗
Abstract
Privacy matters: Conversations about surveillance within and beyond the classroom presents a salient investigation into the impacts of surveillance upon writing education, embodiment, and culture. Authors Estee Beck and Les Hutchinson Campos set out to constellate surveillance-focused rhetoric, writing, and technical communication scholarship to empower educators, administrators, and professionals to "subvert the state" by investigating how privacy and surveillance impact writing practices, agency, community, identity formation, and citizenship. Organized thematically into three parts---surveillance and classrooms, surveillance and bodies, and surveillance and culture---this 2020 edited collection presents a snapshot in time of surveillance in writing technology as it is broadly defined, inviting scholars to continue the discussion as surveillance and cultures continue an entangled evolution.
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Abstract
This article reports on a study about design thinking pedagogy in technical communication courses taken by engineering students. The study suggests that design thinking pedagogy can foster engineering students' empathy for users, particularly their ability to recognize the feelings, knowledge, and perspectives of others. However, its findings reinforce the difficulty faced when encouraging students' societal-level empathy and the limitations of empathy. While engineering students may struggle to transfer user empathy to courses in their major, this study found that engineering students believe design thinking has relevance to their future careers. This article offers teaching strategies and project ideas for technical and professional communication instructors to facilitate students' ability to transfer user empathy to their disciplines.
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Abstract
This article confronts challenges faced by users of technical information with hearing impairments. The increase in digital documents since 2000 has led to multimodal technical multimedia that features aural information (i.e., meaningful sound). However, there is little effort to train technical communication professionals to make audio more accessible. Herein, we share how to use descriptions, captions and subtitles, transcription, and sign language to make sound an accessible part of today's digital life. We explain using four accessible design elements to address challenges faced by users of digital documentation who cannot hear the information. Ultimately, we support technical communicators seeking aural information justice for all.
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Abstract
Despite scholarly alignments between user experience (UX) principles and contract grading, further accounts and studies of grading in UX courses are needed. My self-study of a UX course found that labor-based contract grading helped de-center instructor and peer evaluation and foreground user, client, and stakeholder priorities in community-engaged work, and that it supported engagement in a process of connected UX activities. However, I was also challenged to accommodate flexible UX processes and develop a course engagement model that maximized access to UX process opportunities. I conclude with a heuristic to guide the design of grading models for UX courses.
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An Experience Report on the Opportunities and Challenges of a Community-Engaged User Experience (CEUX) Pedagogy for a Masters-Level Course ↗
Abstract
In this experience report, we share our approach to a Community-Engaged User Experience (CEUX) (Lee et al., 2023) pedagogy for a graduate-level technical writing research methods course in a traditional English department at Portland State University. We narrate the institutional context and history of the course and two sections of the course with different community partners: the Spring 2022 collaboration with the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) focused on the state's COVID-19 response websites and the Spring 2023 collaboration with the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) focused on OHSU's main website and its Spanish and Russian microsites. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of each instance of the course and of our variation of a "one-to-many" model for CEUX.
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Abstract
This experience report describes a six-week unit at the intersection of technical and professional communication and user experience design (TPC-UX). Drawing on the work of Patricia Sullivan and Thomas Kent, it argues for a paralogic hermeneutic approach to TPC-UX pedagogy and illustrates how the Double Diamond design process can be used to scaffold assignments and create methodological balance. It also describes how commonplace TPC assignments---such as the technology tutorial---can be reframed according to user experience methods. Details about readings and deliverables are included.
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Abstract
This article discusses a newly created method of UX journey mapping---User Experience as Racial Storytelling (UXRS)---designed to centralize Black user narratives in design thinking, and the teaching implications as a Black woman non-tenure track (NTT) online technical and professional communication (TPC) instructor. Revisiting an assigned group activity in a synchronous online technical writing course for engineers at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI), this essay will share pedagogical approaches of user experience as TPC pedagogy used to scaffold this method of racial storytelling as an anti-racist practice to adapt a social justice framework. This essay suggests UXRS can aid engineering students' perspective of inclusive design.
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Abstract
In the introduction, we describe the exigence for the special issue and discuss how technical and professional communication (TPC) instructors teach user experience (UX) in ways that are unique, divergent, and innovative. Given the interdisciplinary nature of UX, sharing teaching stories as we do in this special issue demonstrates the multivocality of UX pedagogy and highlights the unique perspectives TPC instructors have to offer.
June 2024
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Abstract
This article confronts challenges faced by users of technical information with hearing impairments. The increase in digital documents since 2000 has led to multimodal technical multimedia that features aural information (i.e., meaningful sound). However, there is little effort to train technical communication professionals to make audio more accessible. Herein, we share how to use descriptions, captions and subtitles, transcription, and sign language to make sound an accessible part of today's digital life. We explain using four accessible design elements to address challenges faced by users of digital documentation who cannot hear the information. Ultimately, we support technical communicators seeking aural information justice for all.
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Abstract
Have you ever wondered how a researcher from the periphery can gain an enduring foothold in the pantheon of researchers from the center? This essay will attempt to answer that question. Halcyon Lawrence was a researcher, writer, and professor from the Global South who has made a mark on a community of technical communication scholars, writers, researchers, and professors with her widely discussed research articles dealing with the pros and cons, perils and promises, boon and bane of speech recognition tools and technology. Lawrence's research explores the thickets of speech recognition and proposes strategic and revisionary measures toward neutralizing the lopsided corpora of speech recognition software, vaporware, and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology. To crystalize her contributions to justice, data justice, and racial-linguistic justice, I chose a chapter, "Siri Discipline," she (2021) wrote for the book Your Computer is on Fire (Mullaney et al, 2021). My essay highlights how her ideas have gained more traction in relation to the current disruption of the AI revolution (Gopal, 2020). That disruption is often exemplified through ChatGPT, a platform that shows how Lawrence's core insight from "Siri Discipline" can have a direct bearing on normative frameworks being developed to address burgeoning challenges ushered in by the AI revolution.
-
Abstract
Over the course of my friendship with Dr. Halcyon Lawrence, I would often spend weekday evenings completing a mundane chore like washing dishes or feeding the cat. I would then hear my phone's alert for an incoming text message: "I need company. Are you working tonight?" Within 30 minutes or so Halcyon and I were on Zoom, cameras off, and nothing displayed on screen but our login names. Other times I'd receive a text like "I need your advice. Do you have time?" and we convened over the phone. When we talked, answers to our mutual question "How was your day?" prompted stories, and those stories led to musings and reflections. When I became befuddled when an assignment would flop or disappointed by a flat discussion, Halcyon gently queried, "So what were you trying to do?" or "Why do you think that activity didn't go well?" Her responses always reoriented me. When venting was no longer productive, we teased apart the problem, speculating what skill or knowledge students needed but had not sufficiently developed. These conversations often gave me enthusiasm for a new pedagogical approach or revealed insights about the gaps in our teaching and our students' learning. In the months since Halcyon's passing, I miss most acutely these nightly conversations about what was happening in our classrooms. My goal in this essay is to underscore the fact that part of Halcyon's legacy as a social justice-oriented technical communication scholar is her ethos as a teacher and collaborator who cared capaciously about student learning and the development of teaching practices and assignments.
March 2024
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Review of "Privacy matters: Conversations about surveillance in and beyond the classroom by Estee Beck and Les Hutchinson Campos," Beck E, & Hutchinson Campos, L. (Eds.). (2020). <i>Privacy Matters: Conversations about surveillance in and beyond the classroom.</i> Utah State University Press ↗
Abstract
Privacy matters: Conversations about surveillance within and beyond the classroom presents a salient investigation into the impacts of surveillance upon writing education, embodiment, and culture. Authors Estee Beck and Les Hutchinson Campos set out to constellate surveillance-focused rhetoric, writing, and technical communication scholarship to empower educators, administrators, and professionals to "subvert the state" by investigating how privacy and surveillance impact writing practices, agency, community, identity formation, and citizenship. Organized thematically into three parts---surveillance and classrooms, surveillance and bodies, and surveillance and culture---this 2020 edited collection presents a snapshot in time of surveillance in writing technology as it is broadly defined, inviting scholars to continue the discussion as surveillance and cultures continue an entangled evolution.
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Review of "Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication by Samuel Stinson and Mary Le Rouge," Stinson, S., & Le Rouge, M. (Eds.). (2022). <i>Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication.</i> Routledge. ↗
Abstract
Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication , edited by Samuel Stinson and Mary Le Rouge, is a timely collection of essays addressing the ways that humans conceptualize and interact with their environment when attempting to communicate the dangers of crises---such as climate change and COVID-19. Explicitly responding to the work of Jeffrey Grabill and Michelle Simmons (e.g., in their seminal 1998 essay, "Toward a Critical Rhetoric of Risk Communication"), this collection offers a broad variety of lenses for thinking about humans' relationships to their surroundings, especially while communicating environmental risk. The 14 chapters in this volume apply methodologies including rhetorical and discourse analysis, ethnography, integrated risk communication, and antiracist framing to topics ranging from university communications about the pandemic to groundwater pollution to upcycled art installations, in the process complicating traditional understandings of risk as something that exists "'out there,' independent of our minds and cultures, waiting to be measured" (Slovic, 1999, p. 690). Considered broadly, the collection offers human bodies and ecological impact as more effective barometers for risk than abstract calculations; individual chapters offer heuristics grounded in human experience or environmental considerations, along with discussion questions and assignments for use in classroom settings. The diversity of topics and methodologies represented ensure that the collection offers something of interest to most scholars and practitioners of risk communication, environmental communication, or embodiment in technical communication.
September 2023
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Abstract
This article interrogates the competing narratives present in one online community for Asherman syndrome to highlight how certain stories about infertility/parenthood thrive in online discussions while others are suppressed or silenced. The author argues that employing a research stance centered on reproductive justice creates new possibilities for coalition building across differences in community-engaged research design. As reproductive justice frameworks aim to protect all reproductive freedoms, these methods eschew cohesive narratives and instead prioritize amplifying diverse patient voices. The article concludes with patient recommendations for communication design interventions to improve user experience with social support online.
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Abstract
In this article, we discuss the unique challenges of Community-Engaged User Experience (CEUX) by using storytelling and present a framework of emergent patterns (brown, 2017) to make visible labor, practice, and messiness of the process of building, maintaining, and renewing partnerships with community members and partners. We share three models for CEUX engagements: one-to-many, many-to-many, and one-to-plural. Within the models, we detail the structure of each CEUX engagement, what students did, and the affordances and constraints of each model. In addition, we share thoughts or voices from the community partners or collaborators or students engaged in the projects. We conclude by connecting the models to the elements of Emergent Strategy in the section From Patterns to Possibilities where we call on fellow instructors and community partners to embrace abundance-oriented questions.
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Review of "User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice by Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook," Crane, K., & Cargile Cook, K. (Eds.). (2022). User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2022.1367 ↗
Abstract
In User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice , editors Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook present and curate fresh perspectives for instructional and curriculum design by arguing that technical and professional communication (TPC) programs will benefit if user experience (UX) methodologies are applied in pedagogical settings to gain greater insight into the student user's needs, challenges, and environments, thereby not only making student users the center of the course design process, but also co-creators of instructional materials and strategies. To support the effectiveness of UX methodologies in learning about student needs and assessing program success, Crane and Cargile Cook bring together authors who present case studies where UX methods such as user profiles, journey maps, usability studies, diary entries, affinity diagramming, and so on were applied in various aspects of pedagogic design and re-design.
July 2023
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Designing Public Identity: Finding Voice in Coalitional Technical Writing with Black-Led Organizations ↗
Abstract
This experience report offers an applied example of coalitional communication design, written collaboratively by a white faculty member for a student grant writing program and a Black executive director of a community organization. Highlighting the needs, thought processes, and practical considerations of doing antiracist technical communication work collaboratively from varied identity positions, we detail an ongoing effort to redesign a Black community organization's public voice to honor Black humanity and communal healing. This example spotlights the possibilities of coalitional technical writing that deeply engages with and supports community needs, one way to meet the challenge of TPC's social justice imperative.
March 2023
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Review of "The Profession and Practice of Technical Communication by Yvonne Cleary," Cleary, Y. (2022). The profession and practice of technical communication. Routledge. ↗
Abstract
Yvonne Cleary's The Profession and Practice of Technical Communication (2022) offers a narrative survey on communication design/technical communication as an academic field of study but also builds bridges between academic work (both pedagogical and research-oriented) to work environments and practitioners in the professional realm. Because of the book's organizational structure and approachable text, Cleary is highly successful both in her research and the presentation of it, creating a valuable resource for students and providing insight for field practitioners.
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Exploring Healthcare Communication Gaps Between US Universities and Their International Students: A Technical Communication Approach ↗
Abstract
US healthcare is a complicated system not just for US-born citizens but also international students in the US. While universities inform international students about how US healthcare functions, these students still struggle with navigating healthcare owing to the cultural and technical challenges they face with the system. This paper investigates how US healthcare information can be conveyed effectively by universities so that international students navigate healthcare with fewer challenges. This research was conducted using qualitative methods with 12 international student participants at a US university. Using the collected data, the study provides recommendations to improve healthcare communication on campuses and insights to increase the scope of this study to further investigate international students' healthcare access challenges.
December 2022
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Surveying the Effects of Remote Communication & Collaboration Practices on Game Developers Amid a Pandemic ↗
Abstract
Communication and collaboration are essential parts of the game development process. However, during the global pandemic, the shift to remote work marked a sudden change in how developers could communicate and collaborate with one another, as usual ad-hoc conversations that happen in physical offices were nonexistent. Based on a partnership grant study with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), this piece focuses on the results of a survey that examined developers' mental health and productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that most game developers want a hybrid or fully remote position even after pandemic conditions subside. Failure to address the pandemic's impact on the game development industry risks ignoring a rich area of technical communication complicated by, and responsive to, hybrid workplaces.
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Abstract
Our paper centers embodiment as a theme and a process in research through describing the fine-grained practices and everyday interactions that shape collaborative research in the contexts of watershed restoration and environmental monitoring. We focus on embodiment because it offers a means for attending to the process and politics of knowledge production within and across boundaries. We offer two case studies that focus on embodiment to structure research processes and shape ongoing, emergent, and collaborative research practices. We argue technical communication as a field is well positioned to include embodied practices in research design and writing.
September 2022
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Abstract
This article theorizes infrastructures and their components as rhetorical objects for analysis and persuasive use. Though the term infrastructure has been applied broadly to several studies in the social sciences, writing, technical communication, and technology studies, infrastructures have yet to be systematically theorized as an active persuasive consideration for those engaging in communicative practice. This article makes a case for a taxonomic theoretical understanding and conceptualization of infrastructure that may lead to new methodological developments in future research. This theory builds from theories of infrastructures as relational networks of social interaction around objects. The article aims to assist the persuasive endeavors of those engaged in communicative practice in infrastructural settings.
July 2022
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Abstract
As one kind of designed communication, technical communication is created for readers we assume use the content for some situated purpose. Understanding users and their situations to be varied, communicators rely on simplified models of both to create usable content. In many cases, this approach works, but in some commercial sectors, companies are recognizing a need to engage with users directly and to include them in the production of communication. Including users in the production of communication may ease the burden of communicating in ways that are sufficiently detailed, accurate, inclusive, localized, and timely, but these ventures also create challenges of collaboration that direct attention to how users are situated in infrastructures that allow them to act as effective readers and collaborators. This article presents a model of users, situating them amid infrastructures that extend their ability to take rhetorical action. The authors explain and demonstrate a heuristic for analyzing infrastructure as an extension of a user's "mediated potential" for rhetorical action.
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Abstract
Despite their central importance to a variety of endeavors and despite widespread use in both industry and academia, version control systems (software for tracking versions of files) have not been extensively studied in fields related to technical communication, rhetoric, and communication design. Git, by far the most dominant version control system today, is largely absent. This study theorizes Git as boundary infrastructure---infrastructure used to facilitate collaboration across disciplines and domains. The unique characteristics of boundary infrastructure explain how something as prominent as Git can be so invisible and help identify dangers posed by boundary infrastructure. Drawing on modes of resistance developed in feminist rhetorics, this article concludes with suggestions to ameliorate the negatives effects such infrastructure might have on collaborative knowledge work.
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Review of "Design Thinking in Technical Communication: Solving Problems through Making and Collaboration by Jason C. K. Tham" Tham, J. C. K. (2021). Routledge. ↗
Abstract
The use of design thinking (DT) as a pedagogical and problem-solving strategy has been gaining interest in technical and professional communication (TPC) for years, and Jason Tham'sDesign Thinking in Technical Communicationis the best and most comprehensive statement on this topic that our discipline has created yet. The book first overviews its central concepts (DT and "making"), then illustrates very concretely how those concepts can improve pedagogy, social advocacy, and collaboration in TPC. All the book's chapters (except the conclusion and first chapter) contain empirical elements, which Tham uses to support his points.
March 2022
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Abstract
In this project experience report, we describe our experience working as researchers specializing in technical communication that informed the risk communication decisions for an interdisciplinary, grant-funded, risk communication website called HazardAware. We first discuss how content audits serve as a website design research method. Next, we provide our Content Audit Selection heuristic in a process flowchart format to enable communicators to understand how practical application of content audits serve as a formative tool to streamline the decision-making processes for complex website design content. Finally, we describe how we used the Content Audit Selection heuristic to inform the risk communication decisions for HazardAware.
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Abstract
Technical communication instructors, especially those with expertise in visual rhetoric, information design, or multimedia writing are well-suited to teach an introductory Digital Humanities (DH) course. Offering a DH course provides an opportunity to reach extrafield audiences and work with students from a variety of humanities disciplines who may not have the option of taking such a course in their home department. The article advocates for a DH course that offers a methods-driven pedagogy that engages students with active learning by requiring them to research, dissect, and report on existing DH projects, as well as work with existing datasets and methods from prior student research projects or existing DH tools. The sample student project reviewed here uses the data visualization software ImagePlot, and discussion includes how the student used the tool to examine changes in brightness, hue, and color saturation, as well as calculate the total number of distinct shapes from 397 comic book covers. Ultimately, the students are tasked with developing a research question and moving to an articulated methods-driven approach for exploring the question. The student project along with the tools and sample datasets available with them are treated as a module that may be included in an introductory DH course syllabus or training session.
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Review of "Composition and Big Data edited by Amanda Licastro and Benjamin Miller," Licastro, A. & Miller, B. (Eds.). (2021). <i>Composition and big data</i> . University of Pittsburg Press. ↗
Abstract
The evolution of digital tools and platforms has ushered in new possibilities for researchers, scholars, and practitioners of rhetoric and composition and adjacent fields like technical communication. These technologies change the ways we can gather, store, and use larger datasets, prompting new discussions on what big data methods look like in the field. The chapters housed in Amanda Licastro and Benjamin Miller's edited collection Composition and Big Data investigate the promises, concerns, and areas for further conversation regarding the applications of big data methods in composition-focused research.
December 2021
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Unlikely allies in preventing sexual misconduct: Student led prevention efforts in a technical communication classroom ↗
Abstract
Students' participation in relevant service learning can have a unique impact on their institution of higher education, if provided the opportunity. This article explores student-designed sexual misconduct prevention efforts taking place in an undergraduate project management course at one institution of higher education. We found that involving students in particular kinds of campus communication design and implementation simultaneously improved those efforts and offered students the opportunity to participate in impactful civic projects. In our article, we first examine the most common approach to sexual misconduct prevention, while considering its limitations. We then introduce a nontraditional collaboration---technical communication student involvement within prevention work---which resulted in new efforts. Finally, we illustrate how instructors can integrate similar collaborations.
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Review of "Equipping technical communicators for social justice work: Theories, methodologies, and pedagogies," by Rebecca Walton & Godwin Y. Agboka; Walton, R., & Agboka, G. Y. (Eds.) (2021). <i>Equipping technical communicators for social justice work: Theories, methodologies, and pedagogies.</i> University Press of Colorado ↗
Abstract
Historically, the field of technical and professional communication (TPC) has seen its ethical responsibility in a rather narrow way: TPC has been thought to be related only to precisely and correctly transmitting information, and TPC's ethical responsibilities are more related to either technology creators or users, but less so to technical communicators (Dombrowski, 2000). However, in recent years, with the rapid development and application of science and technology, scientific discourse and technical communication have made greater impacts on society and people's lives than ever before. Our discpline has increasingly realized the "complex, active, and creative" (Dombrowski, 2000, p. 3) roles technical communicators can play. Under the influence of modern theorists (Weaver, Burke, Foucault, etc.), we start to think of science itself as a value and ethical system that involves goals, ethical procedures, and decision making, and more importantly, we realize the power of the language we use for scientific and technical communication. Our ethical decisions relating to the genre, language style, layout design, and inclusion/exclusion of certain information influences readers' perceptions of the fact, shaping their knowledges, values, and beliefs of the world. As Dombrowski (2000) puts it: "as our influecne grows, so do our responsiblities" (p. 3). Now it is the right time for technical communicators to realize our expanded roles and responsiblities in doing our work and to embrace the ethical and social justice turn in our field.
July 2021
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Abstract
This article provides an overview of technical content marketing and examines the audiences and messaging for technical product messaging, which differ from general consumer products. Notably, technical products, particularly those in innovative categories, require a varying marketing strategy throughout the technology adoption lifecycle as products appeal to customers with different attitudes towards technologies. Especially, content marketing for innovative technologies requires an understanding of the technical consumers' (or audiences') psychological motivations and needs, which have yet to be reviewed in the technical communication literature. In this article, the foundations of marketing innovative technical products are explored, with a specific focus on the messaging strategies as it changes to educate and persuade different categories of technology consumers during different phases of the technology adoption lifecycle. For new technical products and categories of products, the messages and channels of information evolve as the technical innovation progresses from the early market to a mainstream market, with both requiring adaptation to different audience segments and in response to emerging competitive pressures. For the majority of technical innovations, the technical content marketing strategy and messaging is a long-term investment for change to reach different consumer groups at the appropriate stage of the technical product life cycle.
March 2021
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Review of "Rhetoric of health and medicine as/is: Theories and approaches for the field by Lisa Melonçon, S. Scott Graham, Jenell Johnson, John A. Lynch, and Cynthia Ryan," Melonçon, L. Graham, S.S, Johnson, J., Lynch, J., & Ryan, S. (Eds). (2020). Rhetoric of health and medicine as/is: Theories and approaches for the field. The Ohio State University Press. https://doi.org/10.26818/9780814214466 ↗
Abstract
The foreword, written by Judy Z. Segal, begins with a brief dialogue between a patient and a nurse that illustrates the effects of discursive actions on health and medicine. It is a dialogue between a patient and a nurse, reminiscent of stories of ancient cartographers who mapped their changing and uncertain worlds through stories, discovering ever new riches in a world that wasn't flat. In the same way, contemporary thinkers in health and medicine are discovering the treasure in exploring rhetoric and technical communication across traditional boundaries. These authors move through previously uncharted territory with story and new questions that extend the boundaries of our individual bodies. They explore important questions of individual human agency and how that intersects with social and rhetorical theory. Critical questions new to medicine in the twenty-first century, such as resistance, power of representation, and where advocacy for health justice lies, are topics explored through a variety of lenses in this collection.