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Douglas R. Wieringa

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Publications by Douglas R. Wieringa (bibliography)

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1995
 
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Schumacher, Robert M., Root, Robert W., Wieringa, Douglas R. and Lew, Gavin S. (1995): The Human Factors Involved in Designing an Online Reference System. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 39th Annual Meeting 1995. pp. 218-222.

Throughout the last two years, we have been involved in an ambitious plan to move support documentation to an electronic document delivery system at Ameritech. The purpose of this panel is to provide a discussion of the human factors issues involved and the effort required to move from a paperbased environment to an electronic document management and delivery system. The starting state of Ameritech's documentation was similar to that of many large companies that have complex processes. The documents were written by dozens of authors over several years and varied widely in quality. Standards were loosely followed, if at all, and users were continually frustrated by their inability to find information. This unwieldy environment had countless direct and indirect impacts on customers, as well as on the bottom line. As we scoped the project we discovered that our challenges were legion: * Design a new document specification that fit the needs of the users, worked well on-line, exploited the capabilities of electronic information (e.g., hypertext), and could be put together by our current author population; * Develop and implement a collaborative authoring and work flow process to support document creation: * Establish standards for writing and document rendering: * Design an efficient, usable user interface to the electronic document: * Move tens of thousands of pages of hard copy to an online system: and * Get the system introduced and accepted by users -- not to mention wean them away from paper. In this panel, we hope to stimulate discussion around a variety of these topics. We will discuss four key areas: task analysis, process changes, authoring requirements, and user interface design.

© All rights reserved Schumacher et al. and/or Human Factors Society

1991
 
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Wieringa, Douglas R. and Farkas, David K. (1991): Procedure Writing Across Domains: Nuclear Power Plant Procedures and Computer Documentation. In: ACM Ninth International Conference on Systems Documentation 1991. pp. 49-58.

Computer documentation, and in particular documentation for end-user software applications, is so prevalent today that it is easy to forget the larger world of procedure writing, of which computer documentation is only a part. Numerous types of procedures exist, ranging from administrative procedures that focus on human activities, to procedures for assembling consumer products, to procedures governing the operation, maintenance, and repair of complex industrial equipment. One domain in which procedures play an important role is the large and complex process-control facilities such as oil refineries and chemical plants. This paper discusses procedures and procedure writing at one kind of process-control facility -- the nuclear power plant. We think that the differences between nuclear power plant documentation and the documentation of computer systems -- especially software applications -- are interesting and instructive, and we will try to point out some lessons learned from procedure writing in the nuclear power industry that apply directly to software documentation. We first provide an overview of recent efforts to improve procedure quality at nuclear power plants and discuss some of the distinctive challenges faced in documenting nuclear power plant procedures. We then describe how some of the techniques used by nuclear power plant procedure writers can be applied to software documentation. We cover the process of developing and testing nuclear power plant procedures and two of the formats that have proven valuable in creating usable plant documentation. The first is a two-column text format in which users can select either general or highly detailed instruction. The second is a flowchart format that reduces the user's cognitive burdens in following highly branching procedures. The paper concludes with comments on the potential of online procedures, an area in which the nuclear power industry could learn from the writers of computer documentation.

© All rights reserved Wieringa and Farkas and/or ACM Press

 
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Tolbert, Carol A., Moore, Christopher J. and Wieringa, Douglas R. (1991): Emerging Issues for Procedures in the Nuclear Industry. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 35th Annual Meeting 1991. pp. 1238-1242.

 
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May 22

User error: replace user and press any key to continue.

-- Popular computer one-liner

 
 

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Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

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