Power Tools for Business Writing
Author: Julie Levitt
POWER TOOLS FOR BUSINESS WRITING is a results-oriented program that boosts writing skills by 35 percent in just 12 to 15 hours. Focus is on the practical, beginning with "quick starting tools," that include overcoming writer's block, using the clustering technique to generate ideas, maintaining momentum, and hammering out an efficient first draft. The essential basics of grammar and punctuation are covered briefly. In addition, active and passive voice, dummy subjects, and weak verbs are presented. Then techniques are presented for refining the first draft with parallel structure, correct placement of modifiers, and clear pronoun references. Next persuasive writing, effective sentence and paragraph structure, and methods of organizing and delivering information to fit the audience are covered. Guidelines for writing and formatting result-oriented e-mail, memos, and letters are provided along with advice on proofreading. Included are self-testing exercises and review sheets.
Table of Contents:
Preface.1. Quick Starting Tools.
2. Grammar Foundations.
3. Power Tools for Emphasis and Conciseness.
4. Punctuation Essentials.
5. Power Tools for Balance and Clarity.
6. Custom Tools to Persuade Readers.
7. Framing Tools.
8. Sound Blueprints.
9. Formatting and Fine-Tuning Tools.
10. Professional Finishing Tools. Appendix.
Book about: Business Objects XI or Applied Cryptography
Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age
Author: Randolph G Bias
HCI professionals will repeat quotes with statistics, learn from case studies, and copy chapters for their managers. Thorough & thoughtful, practical & actionable-- readers will be able to put the ideas to work immediately!
—Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland
"Cost-Justifying Usability" delivers much more than the promise of its title. Each chapter is worth the price of admission! I found more useful ideas and creative thinking in this book than I've come across in one place in years. Moreover, the collection of articles goes far beyond what the book title might suggest: it not only offers the definitive treatment of determining ROI for usability, but also provides a complete overview of usability considerations for getting you there. From specific calculations to help you with extending the business case, to introducing ethnography into the product development process, Cost Justifying Usability offers a treasure of gems for every user-centered design professional.
—Dominick J. Dellino, Director of User Research and Testing, Washington Mutual
You just know that an improvement of the user interface will reap rewards, but how do you justify the expense and the labor and the time—guarantee a robust ROI!—ahead of time? How do you decide how much of an investment should be funded? And what is the best way to sell usability to others?
In this completely revised and new edition, Randolph G. Bias (University of Texas at Austin, with 25 years' experience as a usability practitioner and manager) and Deborah J. Mayhew (internationally recognized usability consultant and author of two other seminal books including The UsabilitEngineering Lifecycle) tackle these and many other problems. It has been updated to cover cost-justifying usability for Web sites and intranets, for the complex applications we have today, and for a host of products—offering techniques, examples, and cases that are unavailable elsewhere. No matter what type of product you build, whether or not you are a cost-benefit expert or a born salesperson, this book has the tools that will enable you to cost-justify the appropriate usability investment.
•Includes contributions by a host of experts involved in this work, including Aaron Marcus, Janice Rohn, Chauncey Wilson, Nigel Bevan, Dennis Wixon, Clare-Marie Karat, Susan Dray, Charles Mauro, and many others;
•Includes actionable ideas for every phase of the software development process;
•Includes case studies from inside a variety of companies;
•Includes ideas from "the other side of the table," software executives who hold the purse strings, who offer thoughts on which proposals for usability support they've funded, and which ones they've declined.
Randolph G. Bias is an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin School of Information. With a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from The University of Texas at Austin, Bias spent two decades in industry as a human factors professional, addressing software usability for AT&T Bell Labs, IBM, and then BMC Software where he founded and managed the usability department.
Dr. Deborah J. Mayhew is owner and principal of Deborah J. Mayhew & Associates, a consulting firm based in Massachusetts, offering courses and consulting on all aspects of Usability Engineering and user interface design. Clients include American Airlines, AT&T, Ford,Harvard Univeristy, and NASA. Dr. Mayhew received her Ph.D. in Experimental Cognitive Psychology from Tufts University. She is the author of Principles and Guidelines in Software User Interface Design (Prentice Hall), a coeditor of Cost-Justifying Usability (Academic Press), and a contributor to Human Factors and Web Development.
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