By Michael Opsteegh | Design & Testing Track Manager
As you plan your STC Summit schedule, I highly encourage you to check out the variety of sessions offered in the design and testing track. These sessions were hand-picked from many excellent proposals for the Summit, and they were selected specifically to help you “Gain the Edge to Get Results.” The design and testing track offers sessions that target new technical communicators, as well as sessions intended to advance seasoned professionals. Here’s a sample of sessions that are on my must-see list:
- Walk in Your Customer's Shoes—Learn the Art of Journey Mapping. Journey maps help us clarify the needs of users, identify their pain points, create targeted content, and advocate for interface improvements. This interactive session will teach you how to create journey maps—either with your product team or on your own. You will also learn how to apply the journey map process to targeted content. Read more.
- Gamification of Instructional Design. This session focuses on the role of “play” in online learning by exploring design-thinking methods and tools that you can use to engage your learning communities in “play.” Participants will be able to experiment with these methods and tools, and actualize “play” using Learning Battle Cards—a deck of playing cards designed to inspire and facilitate a variety of instructional design and development methods. Read more.
- Prototypes of Use: Adapting Content to the Usability Expectations of Different Contexts. This session discusses how the cognitive psychology concept of prototypes can be used as a method to understand expectations of usability in different contexts and adapt content to user needs across a range of settings. In so doing, the presenter will walk attendees through applications of this approach in different settings. Read more.
You can find the complete list of sessions and start building your schedule by going to https://summit.stc.org/schedule.
See you in DC!