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Subject:Re: usability testing as a career From:Steve Fouts <stefou -at- ESKIMO -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 17 Nov 1998 08:22:28 -0800
Mandy Douglas <mandy363 -at- YAHOO -dot- COM> wrote:
> I'm a student who is majoring in technical communications. One aspect
> of the field that really
> interests me is getting feedback from customers about the product and
> its documentation--otherwise
> known as usability testing. Technical writers do various amounts of
> usability
> testing, depending on the company. What kind of career options are
> available for doing usability testing on a full-time basis? What
> types of software companies have usability labs? What is this person's
> job title?
>
> If you have any information on this subject, please enlighten me!
>
Mandy,
Usability, aka Human Factors, is a huge career path with some definite
overlaps with Technical Writing, but also some fairly significant
divergences. I won't pretend to be able to summarize the topic in an
email message, but in general, advanced degrees in Human Factors
(required for some, but by no means all jobs in the field) have a
greater emphasis on social sciences (such as cognitive psychology)
than degrees in Technical Communication usually do. If you plan to
look into Usability Testing with a Tech Comm degree, take a few
extra Statistics classes as a minimum.
Here are some places where you can go for more information and
contacts:
