Manjari PrasharSeveral of us began the evening with an informal pre-meeting dinner and drink on the sunny terrace of FIAP's on-site self-service canteen.

The meeting got under way a little after 8:00 p.m. Jennifer O Neill, the new STC France Chapter president, made a few quick announcements and then introduced our two speakers. Manjari Prashar, an independent project manager specialized in Web usability issues, started off with a presentation of best practices for web site usability, and Valérie L'Heureux from The Human Interface Group, described how emphasis on document usability led to changes in the documentation and in the software of the Telenet digital TV system.

Manjari Prashar is a Project Manager for content-rich web applications. She is currently working in France, but was previously at MIT, where she was helped manage usability requirements for many of MIT's web sites.

Manjari discussed a very pragmatic approach to the web communications process based on thorough user and task analysis and testing. She cited Alan Cooper and Jacob Nielsen with illustrations from sites she developed. Because Manjari does not have a developer or technical communicator background, her project manager approach was particularly interesting. If we put the emphasis on usability, our backgrounds matter very little because we will all be striving for the same result - user satisfaction.

There was a question about the difference between a web application and a web site in that they may have different usability issues and in the short time we had, there was no solution. However, the basics are the same - users must find what they are looking for or be able to do what they want to do.

Valerie L'Heureux, of The Human Interface Group, showed how a well-implemented usability and documentation process led to the Telenet Digital TV documentation set. This documentation won the 2005 Trans European Technical Communications Competition Best of Show Award.

Valerie discussed the documentation process, which was made more difficult for her group because the project was top secret. The different developers, marketing people and others all had different pieces of information and their information frequently conflicted. The documentation team had to invent the personas to represent the users of this new product (the use of personas is discussed extensively in the works of Alan Cooper). In testing, they discovered that they would need even more conceptual content because the users were so unfamiliar with the product, which allows much more than standard TV interaction.

The documentation team was involved with product usability and document usability from the start. Telenet Digital TV took into account many of the constructive criticisms from the competition judges. They united the two manuals into one and created a quick guide for advanced users. They are proud of their prize-winning documentation and show it on the new editions of their manuals by displaying their winning rosette from the STC Trans European Technical Communication Competition prominently on the front cover.