skip to main content
10.1145/1166324.1166338acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesdocConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Designing communication: considering the dynamics of the discipline

Published: 18 October 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Over the past ten years, technical communicators-theorists and practitioners alike-have been acknowledging change and growth in the field. For example, what once was considered merely writing about technical subjects or objects now encompasses writing the technology itself, in that we are designing complex systems to facilitate the work we do. As the technical communication discipline grows, we report on select trends in the SIGDOC proceedings in recent years to examine the widening of boundaries of the discipline. By doing so, we aim to provide context and situation for the ever-changing role of the technical communicator

References

[1]
Hayhoe, G. "The future of technical communication." Technical Communication. 52.3, 2005, pp. 265--267.
[2]
Teich, T. "Keeping pace with members: the re-engineering (transformation) of STC." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2004. 2.
[3]
Zachry, M., et al. "The changing face of technical communication: new directions for the field in a new millennium." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2001. 248--260.
[4]
Hart-Davidson, W. "Turning Reflections into Technology: Leveraging Theory and Research in the Design of Communicative Software." Proceedings: IEEE International Professional Communication Conference. Portland, OR: IEEE, 2002. 45---475.
[5]
Leslie, D. Using Javadoc and XML to Produce API Reference Documentation. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2002. 104---109.
[6]
Hailey, D. E. "A next generation of digital genres: expanding documentation into animation and virtual reality." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2004. 19--26.
[7]
Steiner, D. "Developing documentation systems for pervasive network environments." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 85--88.
[8]
Stock, I., et al. "Metadata based authoring for technical documentation." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 60--67.
[9]
Abraham, L., et al. "Guidelines for writing HTML help." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2000. 453--462.
[10]
Priestley, M. "DITA authoring." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2002. 3.
[11]
Priestley, M. "Scenario-based and model-driven information development with XML DITA." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2003. 45--51.
[12]
Priestley, M. "DITA authoring." (Workshop) In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 3.
[13]
Dufty, D., et al. Automatic evaluation of aspects of document quality. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2004. 14--16.
[14]
Tilley, S., et al. "5th International workshop on graphical documentation: determining barriers of adoption of UML diagrams." (Workshop) In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 4--5.
[15]
Stamey, J., et al. "The aspect-oriented web." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 89--95.
[16]
Albers, M. "Signal to Noise Ratio of Information in Documentation." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2004. 41--44.
[17]
Davison, G., et al. "The use of eBooks and interactive multimedia as alternate forms of technical documentation." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 108--115.
[18]
Roy, D. A Self-Paced Approach to Hypermedia Design for Patient Education. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2004. 27--32.
[19]
Beale, R. Information fragments for a pervasive world. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 48--53.
[20]
Gilbert, C. C. "Engineering creativity: the Bauhaus and the future of technical communication." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2004. 58--63.
[21]
Carpenter, S. Implementing DITA XML in a production environment. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2002. 17--19.
[22]
Priestley, M., & Schell, D. Specialization in DITA: technology, process, & policy. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2002. 164--176.
[23]
Novick, D., et al. Extending direct manipulation in a text editor. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2002. 127--132.
[24]
Murphy, S. Accessibility of graphics in technical documentation for the cognitive and visually impaired. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 1--17.
[25]
Graham, M., et al. Design of documentation for handheld ergonomics: presenting clinical evidence at the point of care. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2002. 44--48.
[26]
Dyke, J., & Wojahn, P. "Getting 'dissed': technical communication in interdisciplinary engineering teams." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2000. 7--23.
[27]
Chamberland, L. "Evolution of the writer's role." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2000. 1--6.
[28]
Pierce, R. "Leveraging technology affinity: applying a common set of tools and practices to information development." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 123--130.
[29]
Gattis, L. Planning and information foraging theories and their value to the novice technical communicator. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2002. 29--43.
[30]
Barnum, C. "Building a team for user-centered design." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2000. 325--332.
[31]
Dicks, S. "The paradox of information: control versus chaos in managing documentation projects with multiple audiences." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2000. 253--259.
[32]
Gibson, J.W., et al. "Cyberteaming: developing the online educational team." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2000. 87--92.
[33]
Leone, S., et al. "Concept and architecture of a pervasive document editing and managing system." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 41--47.
[34]
Price, C., & Coulter-Smith, E. "Developing an theory and practice of pervasive information capture, processing, visualization and documentation." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 96-102.
[35]
Albers, M. "Multidimensional analysis for custom content for multiple audiences." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2003. 1--5.
[36]
Yeats, D. Revising documentation deliverables based on usability evaluation findings: a case study. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2004. 17--18.
[37]
Jackson, S. Editing computer hardware procedures for multimedia presentation. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2001. 68--72.
[38]
Hayhoe, G. "Who speaks for our profession?" Technical Communication. 50.3, 2003, pp. 313--315.
[39]
Cooper, A. "Way beyond ROI." In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2005. 3.
[40]
Crawford, V. Setting performance expectations for technical communicators. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2003. 206--209.
[41]
Williams, C. Writers in the dot.com storm. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 2001. 55--57.
[42]
Carlshamre, P., and Tumminello, J. Technical communicators' current views on usability and collaboration. In Proceedings of the SIGDOC Conference. ACM Press, New York, NY. 1995. 11--19.

Cited By

View all

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences
SIGDOC '06: Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication
October 2006
224 pages
ISBN:1595935231
DOI:10.1145/1166324
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 October 2006

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. SIGDOC trends
  2. research
  3. technical communication

Qualifiers

  • Article

Conference

SIGDOC06
Sponsor:

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 355 of 582 submissions, 61%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)1
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 07 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

View Options

Get Access

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media