Articles by Ginny Redish

Dr. Redish helps clients bring their customers great user experiences. A long-time member of UXPA and of the UTEST advisory council, She has been called the "mother of usability." Her book, Letting Go of the Words -- Writing Web Content that Works (2nd edition, 2012), focuses on content as conversation. She earned her PhD in Linguistics at Harvard.

The UTEST Community: Celebrating 20 Years of a Safe Space for UX Discussions

Article Contents UTEST, the online community of user experience (UX) practitioners and researchers, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. If you are a member, you know it as a place where you can ask questions, get help and opinions from your UX colleagues, contribute to discussions, find out about potential jobs and interesting non-profit events, […] [Read More]

Overlap, Influence, Intertwining: The Interplay of UX and Technical Communication

Note: In the first part of this essay, Ginny Redish extracts highlights from and builds on her recently-published commentary (Redish, 2010) about the intertwined history of technical communication and user experience. In the second part, Carol Barnum asks deep questions about roles that people with technical communication training have—and could have—within user experience (UX). Part […] [Read More]

Plain Language Makes a Difference When People Vote

Abstract The authors report on a study in which 45 U.S. citizens in three geographic areas and over a range of ages and education levels voted on two ballots that differed only in the wording and presentation of the language on the ballots. The study sought to answer three questions: Do voters vote more accurately […] [Read More]

Expanding Usability Testing to Evaluate Complex Systems

Abstract This essay discusses ways that usability professionals can expand usability testing to evaluate complex systems, such as intelligence gathering and medical decision-making, that do not lend themselves to more traditional laboratory-based usability testing. In the essay, Redish explains what complex systems are, why they don’t lend themselves to traditional usability test methodologies, and what […] [Read More]

Comments on: “A Methodology for Testing Voting Systems” published in JUS, Volume 2, Issue 1

In the article, “A Methodology for Testing Voting Systems” (JUS, November 2006, pp7-21), Selker, Rosenzweig, and Pandolfo discuss their methodology for usability testing of voting systems. With so much at stake in the usability of our ballots and voting systems, we can only applaud any research in this field. There is little history of research in […] [Read More]