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.

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.

Technical and professional communication (TPC) frequently analyzes its own research. Although conferences like Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) are scholarly forums, most work presented is not included in disciplinary analyses or reviews. To articulate a baseline, this article conducts a corpus-based content analysis of the titles and abstracts presented at ATTW or published in Technical Communication Quarterly (TCQ) between 1998 and 2018. The common and key words suggest topic areas and rhetorical features.

In a special issue about data visualization in writing studies, we use this webtext to both make connections between translation and data visualization and to argue that as our fields continue developing methodologies for and orientations to linking writing with visualization, we should take time to honor the communities and spaces for whom visual and alphabetic communication have always been inherently connected.

This article describes graduate mentorship experiences at the Writing, Information, and Digital Experience (WIDE) research center at Michigan State University and offers a stance on graduate student mentorship. It describes WIDE’s mentorship model as feminist and inclusive and as a means to invite researchers with different backgrounds to engage in knowledge-making activities and collaborate on projects. Additionally, the article explains how WIDE enables growth for its researchers, teachers, and leaders. To illustrate these ideas, the authors provide multiple perspectives across faculty mentors, former graduate students, and current graduate students in order to discuss how WIDE researchers practice mentorship and how this mentorship prepares students for future work as scholars and researchers. Finally, the article suggests ways other research centers can adapt WIDE’s approach to their own institutional context.