Amplifying Voices in UX: Balancing Design and User Needs in Technical Communication

by Amber Lancaster (Editor), Carie S. T. King (Editor)

Overview

Designers can create stronger products by considering multiple users with varied perspectives and thus create balance, termed equilibriUX, in their designs.

The field of technical and professional communication is young, and research related to it-and specifically usability-is constantly growing. Usability and user-experience researchers are broadening research into studies involving social issues, accessibility, reconciliation, and user advocacy. Amplifying Voices in UX explores the theme of balance in design and UX in three main areas: curriculum design that includes empathy, service learning, and design justice; design and balance for effective medical and health communication; and design to create balance in labor, social, civic, and political movements.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438496740
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	03/01/2024
Series:	SUNY series, Studies in Technical Communication
Pages:	477
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Amber Lancaster is Associate Professor of Communication at the Oregon Institute of Technology. She is Director of Professional Communication and Associate Editor for Communication Design Quarterly. Carie S. T. King is Clinical Professor, Director of Rhetoric at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is the author of The Rhetoric of Breast Cancer: Patient-to-Patient Discourse in an Online Community.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface
Amber Lancaster and Carie S. Tucker King

Acknowledgments

Introduction: EquilibriUX: Designing for Balance and User Experience
Amber Lancaster and Carie S. Tucker King

Part I

1. Design Thinking in Localized Service-Learning
Jason Tham and Rob Grace

2. TEACH—Standardizing Accessibility with Usability Pedagogy in an Introductory Technical and Professional Communication Course
Jessica Lee and Sushil Oswal

3. Centering Disability in Digital Classes by Applying Disability Justice to User-Experience and Universal Design Practices
Kristin Bennett

4. Preparing Professionals to Make Equitable Experiences of Visual Information for Users with Low Vision and Blindness
Philip B. Gallagher and Marci J. Gallagher

5. Getting to the Heart of User Experience and Usability in Technical Communication Programs
K. Alex Ilyasova and Jamie May

Part II

6. User Localization and MHealth App Design in the Global South Context
Keshab Raj Acharya

7. How Do You Want to Live … or Die? A Case Study Examining Advance Directive Forms and User Advocacy
Felicia Chong and Tammy Rice-Bailey

8. Localizing Mental Health Resources within Collegiate Athletics: Extending User Advocacy and Patient-Experience Design
Mallory Henderson

9. Inclusive Measures: Establishing Audio Description Tactics that Impact Social Inclusion
Brett Oppegaard and Michael K. Rabby

10. BabyTree App: Localizing Usability in the App Design to Accommodate China's Sociocultural and Healthcare Exigencies
Hua Wang

Part III

11. Design Justice in Technical and Professional Communication: Equity for Teaching Faculty and Graduate Student Instructors
Amy Hodges, Timothy M. Ponce, Johansen Quijano, Bethany Shaffer, and Vince Sosko

12. Institutional Transformation: A Critical Analysis Pairing UX Methods and Institutional Critique
Emma J. Harris, Ruby Mendoza, and Emily L. W. Bowers

13. The Beekeeper's Companion: Enabling Ag-Extension Through Localizing and Customization of a Climate-Smart Technology for Women in Lebanon
Sarah Beth Hopton, Laura Becker, Max Rünzel, and James T. Wilkes

14. "It Killed That Girl": Toward Safer Ridesharing Experiences through Feminist UX Design
Lin Dong and Elizabeth Topping

Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This well-edited volume advocates for integrating diverse user voices in the User Experience (UX) design process … UX faculty, instructors, practitioners, and students will find this volume both concretely useful and inspiring." — CHOICE

"Pushes technical and professional communication scholars to examine the more nuanced and marginalized issues that inherently arise in our work and our users’ everyday experiences … This collection, and individual chapters within it, would be useful for user experience courses, information design courses, ethics and technical communication or marketing, and intercultural communication." — Kate Crane, Eastern Washington University

"Takes a hands-on approach to UX approaches and demonstrates that UX can be used at various levels of practice: methodological, pedagogical, institutional, etc. The chapters themselves really shine because they are all focused on a specific set of practices and how they can be applied. They are also very diverse, however, which academic practitioners of UX need." — Guiseppe Getto, Mercer University

From the Publisher