This study explores how a human-centered design (HCD) approach encourages written communication researchers to rethink methodologies when studying wicked problems, particularly in healthcare communication contexts. We argue for “methodological mutability” as a strategy to address complex and evolving challenges in rural healthcare communication. Using design thinking principles, we investigated how generative AI (GenAI) and machine learning can enhance medical communication, streamline documentation, and improve telemedicine usability. Our research revealed that rural healthcare providers view effective patient-provider communication as their primary challenge. This finding led us to pivot toward exploring how AI applications can structure and enhance patient narratives. We advocate for researchers to adopt a designer mindset, integrating methodological flexibility to move beyond problem analysis and instead develop solutions. By embedding HCD, design thinking, and methodological mutability into research design, researchers can prioritize practical interventions when working in spaces beset by wicked problems.

This article examines issues of authenticity involved in using generative AI to compose technical and professional communication (TPC) documents. Authenticity is defined through an Aristotelian understanding of ethos, which includes goodwill ( eunoia), practical wisdom ( phronesis), virtuousness ( arete), and Fromm's concepts of true self and pseudo self. The authors conducted an initial analysis of AI affordances that align with TPC concerns—genre, plain language, and grammatical/mechanical correctness. The preliminary results show that these affordances may be limited by issues of inauthenticity. The authors suggest that in order to address AI's limitations, writers should adopt a rhetoric of authenticity via real-world engagement, human centeredness, and personal style.

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.

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.

Background: This project investigates the persuasive strategies used when articulating the problem statement section of entrepreneurial business pitches. Literature review: Although there are many studies of the pitch genre, surprisingly few studies investigate the structural elements of the pitch. Our research fills this gap by structuring the pitch using data from Start Up Chile (SUP), a globally recognized business accelerator. Research questions: 1. Is there a relationship between certain industries and SUP's evaluation of exigence/opportunity? 2. In written problem statements, what rhetorical strategies appear most effective for articulating entrepreneurial exigencies to investors within SUP's business accelerator? Methodology: We analyze 44 written problem statements that scored highly on a metric of problem identification via an initial statistical analysis and a genre-based rhetorical move analysis. Results and discussion: We first establish that a relationship between SUP's ratings and the entrepreneurs’ industries cannot be assumed, then detail rhetorical moves are used by entrepreneurs. Our findings indicate that when entrepreneurs effectively construct problems/opportunities, they employ a cause-and-effect argumentative structure. Their “cause” is described as the result of a societal change or a shortcoming in current solutions to the problem, and the “effects” of this problem are pain points, which frequently manifest as a loss of time, money, or other resources. Implications: By identifying rhetorical moves from real-world instantiations of the problem-statement genre, we offer entrepreneurs and other business communicators persuasive strategies for navigating the rhetorical situation of the pitch.