Introduction: Graduates with master's degrees in Translation and Interpreting (MTI) are an important workforce in technical communication. To meet this need, we examined the pedagogy of trans-writing to better integrate technical communication (TC) into translation programs. This teaching case from two Chinese universities discusses the curriculum design, its implementation, and teaching effectiveness. Situating the case: While an increasing number of universities in China are interested in embedding TC courses into their translation programs, no research-backed effective solution has been identified. About the case: To boost the employability of MTI students, we designed the courses as “user-centered trans-writing with global content,” which features trans-writing as a strategy for global content creation, user research as the core learning task, and team projects as the primary form of engagement. Methods: We used a mixed method of interviews and surveys to investigate the course effectiveness, each targeting different groups of stakeholders. Results: We synthesized a competence framework for trans-writers based on interviews, which showed that graduates (who work as trans-writers) and their employers prioritized language/culture, user-centered mindset, and cooperation as core competencies. A survey focusing on other graduates who took our courses but did not become trans-writers also revealed positive learning outcomes, including expanded professional visions and enhanced skills in user awareness, project management, collaboration, and communication. Conclusion: The trans-writing approach is effective in equipping MTI students with the necessary competencies for global technical communication.

Introduction: Many technical and professional communication (TPC) students, practitioners, and instructors are not trained translators or localizers. However, translation and localization competencies are important in today's interconnected world and should be part of international TPC instruction. To meet this need, TPC instruction may incorporate exposure to translation issues into coursework and explore the growing use of technologies in the translation process. About the case: Recognizing the need to incorporate translation and localization (T&L) into a graduate seminar on “Global Technical Communication” (GTC), the course's instructor and students co-constructed a unique translation assignment that embraced the limitations created by most instructors’ and students’ lack of exposure to or experience with the translation process. Situating the case: TPC education has been criticized for focusing increasingly on TPC and writing classrooms as the object of study rather than sites where students eventually work and apply their knowledge. While study abroad programs or globally connected learning communities are ideal for teaching “real-world” T&L skills, substantial material limitations can impede their widespread adoption. Methods/approach: This experience report was co-authored by the instructor and TPC students from the 2020 and 2022 iterations of the GTC graduate seminar. We describe the translation assignment, its development, and the groups’ final submissions and reflections. Results/discussion: Students’ group and instructor reflections suggest the assignment's potential to facilitate closer engagement with real-world global TPC processes, deeper consideration of language and culture's relationship in TPC, and developing appropriate levels of confidence in working on similar projects as TPC researchers or practitioners. Conclusions: Our experience report provides proof of concept for how we might begin introducing T&L practices to TPC students in low-stakes but meaningful assignments.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Black mentorship is key to the professional development of Black scholars in technical and professional communication (TPC) and writing studies. Blending narrative ethnography and grounded theory, this article extends existing investigations into mentorship among Black professionals, by exploring how mentorship and rhetorical kinship among Black TPC and writing professors enrich their professional development. With implications for both academia and industry, this article highlights how Black TPC scholars develop, negotiate, and sustain Black professional ethos.

Through an auto-ethnographic critical reflection methodology, this article describes our attempts to use course documents as tactical tools of resistance within undergraduate professional writing courses. Using introspection to examine how our positionalities and values shape the choices we make when constructing course documents, we advocate for scholars and practitioners of rhetoric and technical communication to engage in a sustained practice of critical reflection as part of developing inclusive and equitable pedagogy and classroom coalition building.

In this Methodologies and Approaches piece, I introduce the concept of professional critical consciousness (PCC). PCC combines professional consciousness and critical consciousness to form a workplace praxis centered on social justice. I describe PCC using work and classroom experiences and provide instructors with assignment ideas to promote PCC. By learning how to increase one's power and legitimacy in the workplace, technical communicators can use PCC in ways that are more intentional and socially just.

This article offers a content analysis of technical and professional communication articles related to user experience (TPC-UX) published between 2013 and 2022 in six TPC scholarly journals. This analysis reveals that TPC-UX primarily focuses on product and process topics and illustrates the terminological comingling of user experience and usability. Specific TPC-UX topics identified include theory, multimodality, health and medicine, localization, web design, mobile applications, accessibility, and content strategy. These topics suggest that TPC-UX's key affordances are its attunement to networked power dynamics, its theoretically rich treatment of multimodality, and its strategies for navigating contextual complexities.

In the discipline of technical/professional writing and communication, one of the strongest recruiting tools we use is the potential earning power students will have once they obtain a degree and secure a job in the industry. This article is the result of two professors learning that one of their most advanced and dedicated students accepted, in her first job out of graduate school, a salary we thought was thousands below her earning potential. Our conversations around this student's situation led us to survey other alumni from our programs. What we have learned is that students often do not know what salaries they should expect, nor do they feel comfortable negotiating a salary offer. In addition, graduates’ location (urban vs. rural) and level of education (BA or BS degree vs. MA) impact their earning potential.

Chemist Ethaline Cortelyou, a significant figure in the emerging profession of technical communication in the 1950s, became a national mentor to women in the sciences, first leading them into the practice of technical editing and then away from it. This article presents a case study of her awakening to the true nature and cost of the patriarchal workplace and her own complicity in actively supporting sexist assumptions and the status quo. During the Sputnik crisis, Cortelyou recognized and overcame her internalized sexism, revised her advice to young women in the sciences, and became a public advocate of workplace reform.

While the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) format is common in scientific writing, it may not currently be as ubiquitous as often thought. We undertook a systematic, corpus-based study of primary section headings in research articles across a range of STEM disciplines to investigate adherence to the IMRAD structure in relation to type of study (computational, empirical, or theoretical) and field. We identified four categories of structure: IMRAD, IMRAD+ (IMRAD with additional sections and/or different order), Nested IMRAD (multi-part studies), and Non-IMRAD. Papers in biology mainly used an IMRAD format, while less than half in engineering or social sciences did so. While empirical papers tended to use IMRAD formats, most computational papers did not. Thus, our findings show that IMRAD is a common but not universal structure for contemporary scientific writing. Awareness of these differences should encourage teachers of scientific and technical writing and scholars of writing studies to pay closer attention to the actual structural forms used in different STEM disciplines and with different methodological types of research studies.

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) has disrupted approaches to writing in academic and professional contexts. While much interest has revolved around the ability of LLMs to generate coherent and generically responsible texts with minimal effort and the impact that this will have on writing careers and pedagogy, less attention has been paid to how LLMs can aid writing research. Building from previous research, this study explores the utility of AI text generators to facilitate the qualitative coding research of linguistic data. This study benchmarks five LLM prompting strategies to determine the viability of using LLMs as qualitative coding, not writing, assistants, demonstrating that LLMs can be an effective tool for classifying complex rhetorical expressions and can help business and technical communication researchers quickly produce and test their research designs, enabling them to return insights more quickly and with less initial overhead.

The authors analyze the ability of ChatGPT to generate effective instructions for a consequential task: taking a COVID-19 test. They compare the output from a commercial prompt for generating these instructions to those provided by the test manufacturer. They also analyze the input, the prompt itself, to address prompt-engineering issues. The results show that although the output from ChatGPT exhibits certain conventions for documentation, the human-authored instructions from the manufacturer are superior in most ways. The authors conclude that when it comes to creating high-quality, consequential instructions, ChatGPT might be better seen as a collaborator than a competitor with human technical communicators.

This case study offers examples of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) writing tools at a small nonprofit workplace dispute resolution center. It explores the limits and strengths of these AI tools, as well as the mediation field's concerns around using AI as a replacement for mediation work. Further, it explores the implications of AI tool use for the ethos of the writer and the AI tool itself as well as for the current pedagogy deliberations occurring in the technical writing field at large.

Background: Technologies are increasingly being deployed in facilitating participatory healthcare. Global governments developed a variety of digital platforms, such as mobile contact tracing apps, to help the public navigate risks and uncertainties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Literature review: Contrary to normative approaches to information design (IxD), the global spread of COVID-19 revealed the need for an alternative design framework (i.e., concept-driven design) to help develop mobile health (mHealth) apps that can support a broader portrayal of information value in IxD. Research questions: 1. In response to COVID-19, what affordances are prioritized by the designers of these global mHealth apps? What do these priorities tell us about design intents and information value? 2. What interpretive framework can we use to understand mHealth designers’ intent across different geopolitical contexts? Research methodology: We captured screenshots of the three apps in the US, India, and China, as well as a website in Ghana. Using touchpoints as the unit of analysis, we conducted an inventory and affinity mapping to visualize the architecture of each app and categorize touchpoints based on their affordances. Results: The comparison of apps across countries displays shared and divergent priorities in their touchpoints, affordances, and information depth. We developed an interpretive framework for understanding mHealth design intent across numerous contexts—Common Interpretive Framework for Design Analysis (CIFDA)—incorporating both linear analysis and recursive analysis of touchpoints, affordances, and depth. Conclusions: Touchpoints in mHealth applications can be designed, but they can also be measured and analyzed, and they can in return help us understand the designer's intent and expected user experience.

Introduction: We introduce our initiative to integrate professional preparedness electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) within an undergraduate mechanical engineering program. EPortfolios provide students with a visual way to illustrate examples of their skills and can help set them apart in employment applications and interviews. About the case: To better prepare our students to communicate their preparedness to potential employers, we integrated ePortfolios within existing undergraduate design courses. We also designed a new portfolio studio course. Situating the case: This teaching case is situated through previous literature on professional preparedness ePortfolios. We limit our scope to studies within engineering and technical communication disciplines. Methods/approach: We integrated ePortfolio instruction and an accompanying ePortfolio artifact assignment requirement within three design classes in our undergraduate Mechanical Engineering curriculum. We assessed assignments and surveyed participants to understand students’ takeaways and approaches on the ePortfolio classroom instruction and assignment. Results/discussion: Results from 147 assignment submissions across three classes indicated that although most assignment submissions demonstrated effective communication of engineering skills, a considerable number of submissions lacked in clarity, professionalism, or relevance. Extended instructional time on ePortfolios could benefit students. More focused instruction could be integrated into existing courses or in a stand-alone portfolio studio course. Our design of this future course was informed by our assessment of student artifacts as well as what we learned about students’ perceptions of ePortfolios from the 130 survey responses. Conclusions: We share lessons learned for teachers from multiple disciplines interested in integrating professional preparedness ePortfolios within their curricula.

Background: Virtual reality (VR) has been studied as a potential tool for preparing technical and professional communication (TPC) practitioners to contribute to emerging technologies. However, no present research in TPC has focused on the methodological value of VR as a sociotechnical research site. Therefore, this study aimed to reveal the methodological value of VR by documenting the processes and methods employed by a student researcher in understanding the ways VR affect community building. Literature review: Humanists have explored and theorized virtuality from various perspectives. Social researchers have explored the use of VR in multiple sectors. Yet, TPC has not established a steady agenda for studying VR as a research site. Research questions: 1. What can we learn from a student researcher's experience of conducting social research in VR? 2. What were the methodological challenges in VR interviews? 3. How can TPC scholars use VR for research? Research methodology: Using ethnographic approaches including interviewing, affinity mapping, and reviewing of VR environments, this study collected insights about performing research with VR and its implications for TPC researchers. Results: The study's participant shared their experience with using VR to conduct research. Five categorial themes were identified from the interview: interactivity, reach, usability, positionality, and tactics. Four VR applications were reviewed. Additional methodological strategies were discussed to prepare TPC practitioners for using VR as a research technology. Conclusion: TPC researchers should consider VR as a viable research technology to expand the methodological means of TPC studies.

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.

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.

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.

Government leaders have called for messaging and prevention programs that target cannabis, which, in recent years, has been viewed more favorably in the public eye. In these efforts, technical communication scholars can make meaningful contributions, and as a start, this article presents a scoping review of three key areas in cannabis risk communication: physician/patient interactions, social media, and cannabis-related businesses.

This article explores how doctoral writers in interdisciplinary life sciences programs navigate genre-ing activities across multiple disciplines. In interdisciplinary environments, approaches to doing and teaching writing may benefit from a reimagining, particularly as findings suggest that writing at interdisciplinary boundaries is unsuited to apprenticeship models of pedagogy. I argue that meta-genre is a productive way of engaging with the destabilization of existing knowledge in technical communication in interdisciplinary spaces and of fostering interdisciplinary writing knowledge.

This study extends the retrospective analysis of entries for the CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication (1999–2003) by Stuart Selber in 2004, focusing on the subsequent two decades (2004 to 2022), to identify the topical research areas and methodologies in technical and professional communication (TPC) via the winning entries of the award. Through descriptive content analysis of 29 dissertations and corresponding summary statistics, this study reports on TPC disciplinary emphases and growth based on the sponsoring institutions on these dissertations, featured topics and their research methods or methodologies, and projected implications for the field. Accordingly, this study reveals the state of TPC graduate research through the lens of the imminent award and what it means for doctoral researchers, their advisors, and programs.

Zachary C. Beare is an associate professor of English at North Carolina State University. His work, which studies how identity and emotion mediate rhetorical activity, appears in College Composition and Communication, College English, Composition Studies, the Journal of Cultural Research, Reflections, Writing on the Edge, and in edited collections.Miriam Chirico specializes in dramatic literature and comedy studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, where she is professor of English. She is the author of The Theatre of Christopher Durang (2020) and coeditor of How to Teach a Play: Essential Exercises for Popular Plays (2020). She has written articles about humor for Studies in American Humor, Text & Presentation, and Shaw: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies.Chris W. Gallagher is professor of English and vice provost for curriculum initiatives at Northeastern University. He has published widely on the teaching and assessment of writing and on educational innovation in K–12 and higher education. He is author or coauthor of five books, most recently College Made Whole: Integrative Learning for a Divided World (2019).Bev Hogue serves as McCoy Professor of English at Marietta College in southeastern Ohio, where she teaches courses in American literature and writing. She recently edited Teaching Comedy (2023), a collection of essays published by the Modern Language Association.Erika Luckert is a PhD candidate in composition and rhetoric at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her research focuses on writing pedagogies at the intersection of composition and creative writing, with an emphasis on social and collaborative practice. Erika's recent work includes articles in JAEPL, the Journal of Creative Writing Studies, and Writing on the Edge, as well as poems in Room Magazine, South Carolina Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.Nancy Mack is a professor emeritus of English at Wright State University and author of Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects and two volumes about teaching grammar with poetry. She has published articles and chapters about teaching memoir, emotional labor, and working-class and first-generation students. She has won state and university teaching awards. Her community service projects include partnerships with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, Dayton Public Television, and the Ohio Department of Education.Jessica Masterson is an assistant professor of teaching and learning at Washington State University Vancouver, where her work examines youth literacies and democratic possibilities in K–12 school settings. Her work appears in Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, and Democracy and Education.Peter Wayne Moe is an associate professor of English and the director of the University Writing Program at Whitworth University. He teaches first-year writing, creative nonfiction, composition pedagogy, rhetorical theory, and a course on the sentence. He is the author of Touching This Leviathan, a Seattle Times favorite book of 2021.Shari J. Stenberg is professor of English and women's and gender studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her most recent book is Persuasive Acts: Women's Rhetorics in the Twenty-First Century (with Charlotte Hogg). Her work appears in CCC, College English, Rhetoric Review, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Composition Studies, and in edited collections.Luke Thominet is an associate professor of writing and rhetoric in the English Department at Florida International University. His work examines rhetorics of health and medicine, user experience in video game development, and applications of design thinking to pedagogy and academic program development. His research has appeared in Patient Education and Counseling, Technical Communication Quarterly, Communication Design Quarterly, and the Journal of Technical and Business Communication, as well as in the edited collections Effective Teaching of Technical Communication, Keywords in Design Thinking, and User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice.

The usability of items is connected to cognition, or how the brain processes information. Many of the related processes occur subconsciously and are guided by the mental models individuals have created based on their experiences. The better communication professional and communication students understand such dynamics, the more effectively they can create usable content for an audience. This article presents an approach, the Actualization, Recognition, Categorization, Operationalization (ARCO) method, for identifying the mental models that influence usability expectations. Individuals can use the results of this process to create content that better addresses an audience’s usability expectations.

This study employs a one-group pretest and posttest design to assess the written and oral technical communication (TC) skills of students in vocational colleges in China. Fifty-nine 1st-year students in automotive engineering participated in a 3-week implementation of a TC module. To measure learner differences, students took oral and written tests before and after the intervention, respectively. Results showed that the module effectively improved students’ written and oral TC skills. In addition, findings from interviews with participants and English teachers indicated that the TC module is suitable from a pedagogical perspective.

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.

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.

This assignment asks first-year writing students to collaboratively create a tabletop game design that would expose players to possible future developments of climate change. The multimodal component is accompanied by a series of writing, research, and communication assignments that are scaffolded to guide students through the iterative process of composing. As students explore alternative formats to make a persuasive argument, they gain a more nuanced understanding of their topic, hone critical thinking skills, and practice addressing different audiences. The final project includes a research paper and a formal project proposal. The author argues in favor of the affordances of game-based pedagogies in a writing and technical communication classroom.

The COVID-19 pandemic made nearly every teacher and student online teachers and students in some capacity. This article presents a case study of an experienced, contingent technical and professional communication (TPC) instructor showing how she sets up, presents, and, most importantly, labors in her course for the benefit of her students and herself. This article ends with recommendations for other online TPC teachers and program administrators to support online TPC courses.

This article offers perspectives on adopting smart home technology into usability testing for technical and professional communication (TPC) courses. Usability is a valued skill for technical communicators. However, usability testing methods have their problems as pedagogical tools. Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and Smart Home Technology (SHT) may offer instructors tools to overcome some of those problems. This article details advantages and concerns associated with using SHT for curricular usability testing.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristopher MaggioChristopher Maggio is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, where he teaches first-year and technical writing. His research interests include storytelling and antenarrative theory and their applications to community-based writing. He recently co-authored an article for a special issue of 'Communication Design Quarterly' on community-engaged research.

We use a continuous improvement model to evaluate an information design assignment by analyzing 120 student drafts and finals alongside instructor feedback. Using data from across sections ( N = 118), we illustrate a process focused on improving student learning that other technical and professional communication program administrators and faculty can follow, while also offering insights into ways programs can assist a contingent labor force with improving pedagogical practice. This study provides insights into assignment design through data-driven evidence and reflective work that is necessary to help continuously improve a service course and to assist students in meeting learning outcomes.

Forms and surveys often require address information, including state. State data entry fields in online forms typically use a dropdown where the user selects one state from the list. A review of online forms shows a variety of state lists used, with some including the state name fully spelled out while others use the state abbreviation, and still others use a combination of the two, like MD-Maryland. Through a series of three independent experiments, we investigate usability of state list designs as measured by time-on-task, accuracy of answers, or user preference. Results indicate that participants have difficulty with state abbreviations alone. That design results in longer time-on-task, and lower accuracy and preference, particularly for states where the user does not live. We did not find any significant difference in usability for full state names compared to the abbreviation and state name combination in a dropdown design.

Creating new emojis is predicated on a system of technical writing that lobbies for new emojis to the Unicode Consortium. Emojination, an activist collective working for cultural inclusivity, helps everyday people write proposals for inclusive and culturally sensitive emojis. Through a case study of Emojination, this article describes ways that Tactical Technical Communication can work toward cultural inclusivity within regulatory frameworks.

While Sada Harbarger is primarily known as the author of the first genre-based technical communication textbook, 1923's English For Engineers, I argue through extensive archival materials that her innovative conferencing with engineering students and interdisciplinary writing efforts, rather, drove her interwar success at Ohio State. Her rural agricultural background and acquaintance with the engineering faculty, combined with her literature training, led to OSU's engineering faculty demanding successfully that English promote her without reference to her textbook. Harbarger is also a notable early example of navigating being a female professor teaching engineering writing in a male-dominated English literature department.

Scale Theory embodies its title in every possible way. It offers both a deep dive into and a 10,000-foot view of scale, scalar thinking, and the role of scale in scientific inquiry. The subtitle, A Nondisciplinary Inquiry, is no less apt. Author Joshua DiCaglio blends insights from rhetoric, philosophy, literary studies, and mysticism to create a novel account of scalar thinking. In so doing, he weaves together detailed thought experiments, the work of Gregory Bateson, and Philip K. Dick’s account of an extraterrestrial communication he received while under the influence of anesthesia. Provocatively, Scale Theory treats these diverse intellectual resources as coequal contributors to an emerging theory of scale and scalar thinking. Within this nondisciplinary framework, the book is devoted to advancing two primary theses: (1) Notions of scale are undertheorized in science studies and related strands of new materialisms; and (2) Proper attention to questions of scale within these theoretical traditions should prompt a more thoughtful reconsideration of the merits of mystic holism. Ultimately, Scale Theory makes a compelling case for the first thesis and advances inquiry usefully in this area. With respect to the second thesis, DiCaglio refers to a certain academic “allergy” to holism (99), and I must confess I share this allergy. That said, I assume readers already predisposed favorably toward mystic holism are likely to find Scale Theory’s attention to the second thesis thoughtful and engaging.Scale Theory is organized into three distinct parts. Part 1, “Algorithms for a Theory of Scale,” presents three interrelated thought experiments that call upon readers to imagine themselves at various distances and vantage points with respect to several objects of interest. Part 1 is stylistically Wittgensteinian. Like the Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus (Wittgenstein 2013) or Latour’s “Irreductions,” (1993), the thought experiments unfold as a series of numbered and nested propositions, each postulating or interrogating an emerging concept in DiCaglio’s theory of scale. Part 2, “Configurations for a Theory of Scale,” returns the reader to more familiar styles of prose, providing a sort of review of the relevant literature and its relationship to the insights of the thought experiments. Finally, part 3, “Rhetorical Technologies for a Theory of Scale,” reflects on the twin marginalizations of rhetoric and mysticism in mainstream Western academia and argues for a new embrace of disembodied inquiry.The aforementioned thought experiments of part 1 outline DiCaglio’s theories of scale, scalar thinking, and scalar analysis. The discussion makes extensive use of visual and cinematic metaphors to aid the reader’s consideration of scalar questions. Ultimately, DiCaglio posits that scale is a function of the relationship between the “‘being’ of phenomena” and “the one who is measuring” (8). He argues, therefore, that “scale functions at a level above ontology and epistemology: scale is a means of orienting yourself both to experience and the being of things” (8). In making this argument, Scale Theory reflects on a range of scientific practices that require gradients of scale. Microscopy, telescopy, and simulations all provide scientists with tools to escape the mundane scales of embodied human experience. DiCaglio argues that “science must always find itself grouping things together, speaking of species, types, systems, and so on which exist on a different logical type than the individual encounters that make up these groups” (41). The taxonomic activities of scientific practice require shifts in scale to account for kingdoms, phyla, orders, genera, species, and all manner of nonbiological analogs.Within this framework, scale functions as a sort of meta-ontology that allows objects to be provisionally identified and delineated. Echoing Bateson, DiCaglio argues that In order for any thing to be said to exist whatsoever, a differential must exist out of which a difference can be discerned. Every differential occurs on some scale at which a fluctuation or movement is able to make a difference. If one goes to a smaller scale, any given differential is no longer able to be used to register a difference. (51)Thus, any given object only exists at certain scales where differences can be said to make a difference, and any given object also ceases to be an object at higher or lower orders where the differences no longer make differences. DiCaglio leverages the notion of “stability” or “stabilization” to refer to an object’s coming into being at any given scale. The metaphor of photographic or cinematographic “resolution” underwrites DiCaglio’s thinking in this area. Objects stabilize when they resolve relative to an observer’s perspective. While I find this account of stability thoughtful and compelling, it is somewhat unfortunate that it is so beholden to visual metaphors. Humans engage the world through many different senses, and not all humans engage the world with all senses.With his foundational ontology of scale established, DiCaglio proceeds to introduce “scalar analysis,” an approach to reckoning with objects, stability, and systems. The exploration of scalar analysis centers on a series of nested thought experiences and most prominently on a root cause analysis of a disease. Through oscillating our perspective between the whole human body and DNA mutations, DiCaglio shows how the dialectic of “zoom level” and “resolution” can further the analysis of complex systems. This analysis is engaging in many ways but suffers somewhat when addressing temporality. Scale analysis wants to “freeze time” (75) as an initial step, but then finds time “unwittingly introduced” (79) a few pages later. Ultimately, an analysis of causality in complex systems will probably require intentionally attending to the temporal dimensions. In fairness, at one point DiCaglio intentionally maps time to space (68) in an effort to maintain the visual metaphors of zoom and resolution. Indexing time to space is a common move, of course, and will likely only alienate a few passing Bergsonians.While the thought experiments in part 1 offer a number of interesting insights about scalar thinking, it is a bit troublesome that they exist almost exclusively in a vacuum. Aside from the occasional supportive reference to Bateson, part 1 is largely citation free. However, the insights provided seem linked in many important ways to prior efforts to understand complex systems and questions of scale. This includes both the work cited in part 2 and striking (albeit unexplored) parallels between scalar stability and accounts of stabilizing processes in the work of Alfred North Whitehead. The Whitehead parallel is, perhaps, not surprising given Bateson’s engagement with Whitehead and subsequent influence on Scale Theory. Nevertheless, this seems like an important connection and a missed opportunity. I would have very much enjoyed reading a discussion of this connection and/or an exploration of the potential synergies and disagreements between Scale Theory and Marilyn Cooper’s (2019) adaptation of Whitehead and Bateson for rhetorical new materialisms.That said, part 2 engages substantively with much of the related literature on new materialisms, actor-network theory, and cybernetics to explore previous attempts to grapple with many of the same issues of scale and complex systems. In so doing, Scale Theory argues that prior efforts to address these issues are hindered by undue focus on embodiment and embodied epistemology (in the case of feminist new materialisms), an inappropriate ontological flattening of scale (in actor-network theory), and lack of attention to holism (in cybernetics). With respect to feminist new materialisms, Scale Theory is particularly critical of Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. While I agree with DiCaglio that too much reliance on epistemology is a problem for some areas of new materialism, I am not sure epistemology is as prevalent in Meeting the Universe Halfway (Barad 2007) as DiCaglio suggests. Furthermore, I ultimately agree with Annmarie Mol who compellingly argues that the primarily problems of (post)modern epistemology come from the ways it is rooted in perspectivalism (2003). Thus, given the inherent perspectivism of scale theory, the approach may well replicate some of the issues new materialists most wish to avoid when avoiding epistemology in the first place.DiCaglio’s critique of embodied situated knowledges is ultimately anchored in his penchant for holism. He argues that bodies are properties of individuals, and that they situate perspective in that individual, atomistic perspective. In so doing, he critiques Haraway’s notion of situated knowledge for its overreliance on bodies that only exist at certain scales. As he writes, In scalar views there is something like a transcendent view that moves away from the body itself (2.10–12)1, zeros out the perspective as “mine” (2.9), and dislocates any single perspectival configuration. Thus, when Haraway declares that “feminists don’t need a doctrine of objectivity that promises transcendence” (579), we ought to hesitate. (134)Thus, to understand the universe, as DiCaglio hopes you will, is to shed your corporeal form and embrace some transcendental perspective. Again, my response to this is something like “yes and no.” I am on record agreeing that it is possible for a theory to be too embodied, although I don’t think this applies to Haraway. I have previously criticized some strains of affect theory for their excessive embrace of embodied experience (Graham 2016). Specifically, I argue that affect theory duplicates the problems of epistemology by positing a more authentic infralevel of embodied engagement that replicates the problematic perspectivalism on which (post)modern epistemology is built. The subject-object binary is replaced by a more privileged body-world binary. If this critique is correct (and I think it is), Scale Theory makes a similar error. Specifically, it inverts affect theory’s normative orientation, privileging instead a putatively “higher” level of unembodied binary engagement, a mind-universe binary, if you will.Scale Theory’s rejections of actor-network theory and cybernetics are similar in both tone and content to its rejections of situated knowledges. ANT and related strands of sociology and geography do not account for scale in quite the same way as Scale Theory’s opening thought experiments. Thus “this inability to handle scale confuses the terms at the outset” (162). Similarly, while cybernetics and systems theory have much to offer scale theory, they are ultimately treated as lacking since they don’t provide appropriate tools for appreciating the aggregation to unity. Channeling Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock, DiCaglio argues that while systems theory is useful for understanding bodies as ecologies, additional scalar (and perhaps mystical) elements are needed to pivot from bodies as ecologies to an apparently necessary identification of our equal oneness with bacteria and Gaia (173). Ultimately, part 2’s criticisms of prior efforts to address questions of scale proceed as though part 1 has successfully persuaded the reader on the merits of mystic holism. Part 2 takes the insights of the opening thought experiments as true, and recounts how feminist new materialisms, actor-network theory, and cybernetics fail to live up to the putative promises of scalar thinking. This is a risky rhetorical move, because for readers who are not entirely persuaded by the work of part 1, part 2 will come across as an exercise in somewhat uncharitable reading practices.Stepping away from the mysticism and my admitted allergies, Scale Theory also provides some thoughtful considerations on implications for rhetoric of science and science studies more broadly. As DiCaglio notes, “Because scale occurs outside of human experience, it must be re-presented at [human] scale. Inevitably, its representations will be partial and distorted” (183). Recognizing this fact points toward real challenges for scientific inquiry and scientific rhetoric which strives to account for notions of scale that cannot be contained at the scale of human representation. DiCaglio interrogates these challenges through an analysis of different modes of “specification” (193). When discussing specification, scholars of science studies most often consider what he dubs “ontological specifications”—that is, descriptions of objects, processes, and observed reality. We also (somewhat less regularly) attend to “epistemological specifications”—descriptions of knowing practices, sometimes methodology. But, since within scalar thinking, objects only exist at certain specific scales, neither ontological nor epistemological specification are sufficient to describe scientific activity. “Scalar specification” then becomes an essential additional rhetoric for both science and science studies. But scalar specifications are not without challenges.Here, DiCaglio draws our attention to “scale tricks” (228). Since scale must be re-presented, scalar thinking and scalar specifications may mislead readers through rendering scale invisible, presuming it infinite, or blending scales without acknowledging that they have been blended. For DiCaglio, transcending scale tricks is a question of accountability (231). Authors of re-presentations of experience have a duty to be consistent and precise in their scalar specifications. Precise specifications disrupt the potential confusions of scale tricks by making the scale intelligible, reminding readers or auditors that there is a scale, and preventing distortion through blending of scales. In some ways, DiCaglio’s theory of scalar specifications is a more encompassing version of the ethics of information design. Properly labeled x and y axes are critical to effective and ethical communication of charted data. Scale Theory reminds us that data need not be displayed graphically to be subject to scale and to require scalar specifications for interpretation.Part 3 of Scale Theory is devoted to the cosmos seeing itself. That is, it ruminates on possibilities for transcending corporality so as to achieve a perspective that all but transcends scale itself. DiCaglio does not precisely recommend specific techniques to achieve this transcendence, but he does point toward accounts of others that prominently feature hallucinogens, meditative practices, and methodical introspection. I will admit I find myself somewhat mystified by the mysticism that closes Scale Theory. Ultimately, I am pragmatic about theory. For me the utility of a theory lies in what work it does for inquiry, and that work needs to be indexed to a particular task at hand. Scale Theory might, perhaps, be considered pragmatic in this way, but the overriding task at hand is to understand the oneness of the universe. My scholarly aims are rather more modest. I put theory to work in an effort to address much more local tasks. As such, what I can take from Scale Theory for my own work may be more limited than what other readers can take. If you lack my allergy to holism and see the intersection of rhetoric, philosophy, and drug-assisted disembodied consciousness as a potential pathway to universal understanding, then this may well be the book for you. Even so, if your aims are somewhat more modest (like mine), then there is still much of interest in the pages of Scale Theory. DiCaglio adds important new dimensions of analysis to new materialisms and related science studies. Readers might take these dimensions as intended, but I would argue that they are also flexible enough to be read more synergistically alongside Cooper and Whitehead or Barad, Mol, and Haraway. And even if you reject new materialisms entirely, Scale Theory compellingly argues that rhetoricians of science would do well to attend, in more detail, to scalar specifications and the problem of scale tricks.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research problem:</b> A considerable amount of scholarship has amassed over the last 20 years regarding the teaching of user experience (UX) design, but there has been no systematic attempt to review this literature. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1.What is the definition of UX pedagogy according to technical communication and adjacent fields? 2. What is the state of specific UX pedagogical approaches in technical communication and adjacent fields? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Our corpus contained 76 sources directly pertaining to the teaching of UX. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research methodology:</b> The theoretical framework of this study marries rhetorical theory and critical thinking. The former provides technical communication literature reviews with keen discourse analysis and the latter offers objectivity to the evaluation. To use this framework, we sought sources using journals related to technical communication and large databases from adjacent fields, including the ACM digital library and IEEE Xplore. We completed our search using Google Scholar to ensure broad coverage. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results and conclusions:</b> Our review of sources revealed a variety of trends and a remarkably diverse conversation on UX, including various definitions of UX pedagogy, and a large variety of theoretical orientations, educational models, instructional approaches, industry influences, methods, and ethical concerns. From this diverse corpus, we hazard a unifying definition centered on teaching the UX process through hands-on approaches such as engaged learning. We close our article with recommendations for continuing to refine UX pedagogy in the future.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Introduction:</b> While usability/user experience (UX) has a long and intertwined history with technical and professional communication (TPC), it is unknown how usability/UX is reflected within TPC research and how that reflection has shifted over time. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Prior studies on the role of usability/UX in TPC have found that usability/UX appears infrequently in TPC research and curriculum requirements. However, usability/UX remains a routinely referenced core identity of TPC. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. To what degree is usability/UX studied in TPC scholarly journals? 2. When TPC researchers study usability/UX, what are they studying? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> A database of TPC-based usability/UX articles was collected through a defined search method. Articles were coded for primary or secondary emphasis on usability/UX, contribution to TPC, object of analysis, method of data collection, and major takeaway. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</b> Less than 8% of the total publications in the field are tied to usability/UX, though the percentage has increased in the most recent timeframe (2020–2022). Publications are shifting from research that expands usability/UX knowledge to research that uses usability/UX to explain TPC phenomena. In addition, the object of analysis has shifted to process-centric analysis, design thinking has become an increasing component of TPC usability/UX research, and over a quarter of the research on usability/UX provided did not provide enough methodological description to enable replicability. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusion:</b> Although usability/UX has been consistently published in the TPC research journals, the amount of research suggests that usability/UX is not core to TPC's field identity.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Introduction:</b> Preparing students to pursue user-experience (UX)-related writing careers requires infusing UX instruction into several technical communication courses throughout a degree program. But university writing programs that seek to add UX courses into their curricula often work inside a slow-paced system where amending course objectives to align with job market demands is a slow process. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">About the case:</b> For this collaboration, we forged a symbiotic relationship between a lower- and upper-class course to introduce students to UX early in their program of study and apply additional or nuanced UX methods in several writing courses as they progress through the program. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Situating the case:</b> Faculty in a writing program that does not currently have stand-alone UX classes can collaboratively improve the student UX in a timely fashion while maintaining the flexibility to adapt best practices and contemporary UX processes across classrooms. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methods/approach:</b> A close reading of test plans (n = 14), usability reports, and reflection essays from 200-level students provided key insights into the understanding of UX strategies. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results/discussion:</b> Introductory students struggled to make explicit connections between UX strategies and their work, but they demonstrated gained UX skills by the end of the project. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusions:</b> Students realized many benefits from learning about and conducting UX research that helped them become more empathetic professional writers. However, instructors should consider additional symbiotic relationships between courses in a professional writing program at several points in the writing process.

Introduction: As a field, we have tended to look at user-experience design (UXD) as a data-driven design process, anchored by usability studies, and anchored in fulfilling user needs and expectations. How then might technical and professional communication (TPC) curricula respond to evolving trends in user-experience (UX) scholarship and pedagogy? About the case: Addressing this question, we share our programmatic journey, a teaching case that represents more than a decade of reflection and evolution, culminating in the launch of a redesigned major and a UXD minor in a stand-alone department at a regional, primarily undergraduate teaching-focused university. Situating the case: Our programmatic identity began to shift toward a designer mindset that embraced three core frames for professional action–information design, problem solving, and civic engagement—and three complementary design tenets—empathy, advocacy, and bricolage. Methods/approach: To better understand this shift, we recognized the need for a multimethod approach of data gathering. Beginning with an annual assessment of our introductory and capstone courses, we collected data through examination of key course artifacts, through department self-studies, which includes surveys, interviews, and focus groups with relevant stakeholders, and through an external review. Results/discussion: Our self-study data indicated that our students would benefit from stronger audience awareness and design competencies. From these data, we discuss curricular revisions, which include creating a UXD minor. Conclusions: We conclude this article by considering the following three questions: 1. What strategies might other programs consider if they want to design empathy-driven UX pedagogy that is responsive to prevailing scholarly and pedagogical trends? 2. Why might programs cultivate student-researchers as UX bricoleurs? 3. What might other programs expect from student-researcher UX bricoleurs?