Published Scholarship
My published work on UX, content strategy, community engagement, and related topics
Citation List on Google Scholar
I’m very thankful to all the fellow researchers who have cited me over the years. Please free to check out my profile on Google Scholar to see some of my most popular pieces of scholarship.
My Books
Content Strategy in Technical Communication, with Jack Labriola and Sheryl Ruszkiewicz, is an edited collection of best practices in content strategy, including emerging research, industry trends, and pedagogies. The book is part of the ATTW Book Series in Technical and Professional Communication and is available for purchase via Amazon or Routledge’s website. Instructors can also request a free desk copy from Routledge.
Content Strategy: A How-to Guide, with Jack Labriola and Sheryl Ruszkiewicz, is practical guide to content strategy for students, professionals, and researches. It includes best practices, activities, and workflows for doing content strategy within an organization. The book is part of the ATTW Book Series in Technical and Professional Communication and is available for purchase via Routledge’s website. Instructors can also request a free desk copy from Routledge.
My Special Issues of Journals
The How-To of Content Strategy: Teaching, Training, and Application, with Suzan Flanagan, is a special issue of Technical Communication that includes work at the intersections of technical communication and content strategy, specifically work that talks about the teaching, training, and application of content strategy. Here’s a link to the journal (subscription required).
The State of UX in Technical and Professional Communication: Courses, Programs, and Jobs, with Jack Labriola and Amber Lancaster, is a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication that includes work at the intersections of technical communication and UX, specifically work that talks about teaching UX and building programs in UX. Here’s a link to the special issue (subscription required).
The People, Practices, and Technologies Central to Content Strategy, with Suzan Flanagan and Jack Labriola, is a special issue of The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication that includes work at the intersections of technical communication and content strategy. Here’s a link to the special issue (subscription required).
Designing for Everyday Life in Global Contexts, with Huatong Sun, is a special issue of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization that includes work at the intersections of rhetorical theory, design, and intercultural communication.
Designing Professional Communication Across Cultures, with Quan Zhou, is a special issue of the journal Connexions that showcases new work at the intersections of professional communication, globalization, and design.
Localizing User Experience: Strategies, Practices, and Techniques for Culturally Sensitive Design, with Huatong Sun, is a special issue of the journal Technical Communication that showcases new work at the intersections of UX, intercultural communication, and culturally sensitive design within the field of technical communication. The special issue (64.2) is available via the journal’s website (subscription required).
UX and Project Management, Part 1 is a special issue of the International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development on new approaches to project management, given the rise of user experience design (UX) as a workflow. Part 1 describes new approaches to project management and UX, broadly defined. Here’s a link to the special issue (subscription required).
UX and Project Management, Part 2 is a special issue of the International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development on new approaches to managing actual UX projects. Part 2 describes approaches to managing a variety of UX projects, from video game development projects to academic research projects. Here’s a link to the special issue (subscription required).
Defining and Operationalizing Culture for Intercultural and Global Research, Theory, and Practice, with Barry Thatcher and Joo-Seng Tan, is a special issue of the journal Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization that argues for more expansive definitions of culture within the field of technical communication.
My Scholarly Articles and Book Chapters
Trends in Post-Pandemic Instructional Design: An Exploratory Analysis of Job Ads Using Textual Analysis, with Hannah Nabi and Bremen Vance, is a research article that presents a systematic textual analysis of job ads in instructional design. Our findings are that these ads ask for a plethora of skills including multimedia design, creating instructional objectives, and Articulate. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Approaches, Contexts, and Critiques of UX pedagogy: An Exploration of Themes from an Integrative Literature Review, with Philip Gallagher and Suzan Flanagan, is a research article that presents additional findings from a systematic literature review of scholarship on UX pedagogy. Our findings are that this is a diverse conversation includes a variety of emerging approaches, contexts, and critiques. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
The State of UX Pedagogy: An Integrative Literature Review, with Philip Gallagher, is a research article that presents the first ever systematic literature review of scholarship on UX pedagogy. Our findings are that this is a diverse conversation in need of more stable concepts. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Emerging UX Skill Sets: Preliminary Findings from a Textual Analysis of Job Ads, with Bremen Vance, Suzan Flanagan, and Kylie Jacobsen, is a research article that presents findings from an initial analysis of several thousand UX job ads, looking for commonality in skill sets, aims, and scope. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
User Experience, is a chapter in Keywords in Technical and Professional Communication that defines and presents a history of the term user experience. Here’s a link to the full chapter.
Localizing UX Advocacy and Accountability: Using Personas to Amplify User Agency, with Suzan Flanagan, is a research article that presents findings from a UX project to develop a mobile app for recreational boaters, including a method for using personas to amplify user agency and increase organizational accountability. Here’s a link to the journal’s website (issue 69(4); subscription required).
What Content Strategists Do and Earn: Findings From an Exploratory Survey of Content Strategy Professionals, with Suzan Flanagan and Sheryl Ruzkiewicz, is a research article that explores findings from a study of content strategy professionals worldwide with an eye toward documenting salaries, skill sets, and workflows. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
What UXers Do and Earn: Findings From an Exploratory Survey of UX Professionals, with Suzan Flanagan, is a research article that explores findings from a study of UX professionals in the Southeastern region of the US with an eye toward documenting salaries, skill sets, and workflows. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Helping Content Strategy: What Technical Communicators Can Do for Non-Profits, with Suzan Flanagan, is a research article that explores findings from a study on non-profit content strategy, with en eye toward informing technical communicators how they can help non-profits improve their communication capacities. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Ensuring High-Quality Student User Experiences: PARS and the Technical Communication Online Writing Class, is a chapter in PARS in Practice: More Resources and Strategies for Online Writing Instructors that describes best practices for utilizing user experience design methods when building online writing classes. Here’s a link to the chapter.
Designing Boater Advocacy: A Lean UX Mobile App Project to Increase Emergency Response Accountability, with Suzan Flanagan and Jack Labriola, is a research article that presents initial findings from a UX project to develop a mobile app for recreational boaters. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
The State of Mobile UX: Best Practices from Industry and Academia, with Jack Labriola and Suzan Flanagan, is a research article that reviews literature on best practices for mobile UX design. We provide combined approaches to mobile UX from both industry and academia. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
The Story/Test/Story Method: A Combined Approach to Usability Testing and Contextual Inquiry, is a research article that describes a new method for combining usability testing and contextual inquiry within a single UX study. I provide pedagogical approaches to using the method in a classroom setting. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
“Hey, Such-and-Such on the Internet Has Suggested…”: How to Create Content Models that Invite User Participation, with Jack Labriola, is a research article that describes best practices for the development of content models that increase user participation. We argue that such models much balance technical know-how with efforts to build collaborative knowledge with users. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
An Introduction to Content Strategy: Best Practices, Pedagogies, and What the Future Holds, with Jack Labriola and Sheryl Ruszkiewicz, is a chapter within our edited collection, Content Strategy in Technical Communication, that provides an overview of current best practices in content strategy including strategies for developing and deploying content, ensuring usability of content, and teaching content strategy to a variety of different types of learners. The book is part of the ATTW Book Series in Technical and Professional Communication and is available for purchase via Amazon.
What Constitutes a Best Practice in Content Strategy? is a chapter within my co-edited collection, Content Strategy in Technical Communication, that explores the notion of best practices as they apply to the discipline of content strategy. Specifically, I argue that such practices are deeply situated within the inner workings of organizations and thus require a deeply contextual approach to avoid codifying practices that aren’t useful to different organizational contexts. The book is part of the ATTW Book Series in Technical and Professional Communication and is available for purchase via Amazon.
A Practitioner View of Content Strategy Best Practices in Technical Communication: A Meta-Analysis of the Literature, with Jack Labriola and Sheryl Ruszkiewicz, is a research article that describes best practices in content strategy and argues for an approach to these best practices that balances strategic and practice-level concerns. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Building Communication Capacities Within Nonprofits Through Service-Learning, with Dennis McCunney, is a chapter in the book Service-Learning to Advance Access and Success: Bridging Institutional and Community Capacity that focuses on how academics can create service-learning partnerships that build the capacities of partner organizations for effective communication. Here’s a link to the book.
A Prototype Theory for Content Strategy Education: Training Content Strategists Within the Academy is an experience report that describes areas of concern for teaching content strategy in academic contexts, including associated best practices, pedagogies, and suggested activities. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
User Experience in a Networked Environment: How Latour Can Help Us Do Better UX Work, with Nathan Franklin, Sheryl Ruszkiewicz, and Jack Labriola, is a chapter in the book Posthuman Praxis in Technical Communication that focuses on how technical communicators can use the work of Bruno Latour to conduct effective UX research projects. Here’s a link to the book.
Helping Communication: What Non-Profits Need from Content Strategists is a research article reporting preliminary findings of a research project to improve non-profit content strategy with a variety of organizations in North Carolina. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Helping Content: A Three-Part Approach to Content Strategy With Non-Profits, with Suzan Flanagan, is an experience report describing a project to help a homeless shelter improve it’s website content strategy, as well as an explanation of how to help non-profits with their content strategy needs. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Mapping Personas: Designing UX Relationships for an Online Coastal Atlas, with Christina Moore, is a research article describing a project to develop personas for an online coastal mapping tool and the implications this process has for digital rhetoricians. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Digitally Mapping the Buddhist Holy Land: Intercultural Communication, Religious History, and Networked Rhetoric, with Derek Maher, is an article on an intercultural project to produce a website representing the Buddhist holy land for multiple online audiences.
Spurring UX Innovation in Academia Through Lean Research and Teaching, with RJ Thompson and Karan Saggi, is an article on best practices for doing academic research and teaching focused on Lean UX. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Content Strategy Service-Learning Partnerships With Nonprofit Organizations: A Guiding Heuristic and Overview of Deliverables, with Lisa Dush, Suzan Flanagan, and RJ Thompson, is an article on best practices for developing service-learning partnerships around content strategy. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Toward a Model of UX Education: Training UX Designers Within the Academy, with Fred Beecher, is a tutorial on how to establish UX education programs within academia. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
iFixit Myself: User-Generated Content Strategy in The Free Repair Guide for Everything, with Jack Labriola, is a research article that explores the content strategy behind the largest free repair manual ever created: iFixit.com. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Managing Experiences: Utilizing User Experience Design (UX) as an Agile methodology for Teaching Project Management is an experience report that explains a process I use to teach project management in an Agile manner through an introduction to the essentials of UX. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
A UX Workflow for Building Awesome Applications, with Kristi Wiley, is a research article that discusses lean UX workflow for building applications and presents a brief case study of a mobile app we helped refine. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Inclusive Assessment: Toward a Socially-Just Methodology for Measuring Institution-Wide Engagement, with Dennis McCunney, is a research article that focuses on how universities can adopt inclusive models for assessing community engagement. Here’s a link to the full article.
Moving From Traditional to Critical Service-Learning: Reflexivity, Reciprocity, and Place, with Dennis McCunney, is a chapter in the book Service-Learning to Advance Social Justice in a Time of Radical Inequality that focuses on how universities can develop situated, critical models for service-learning. Here’s a link to the book.
A Culture of Borrowing: Non-Profit Organizations and Intellectual Property, with Jessica Rivait, is a chapter in the book Cultures of Copyright that focuses on how non-profits can use creative commons and other borrowing tactics to protect themselves from intellectual property violations. Here’s a link to the book.
Designing Globally, Working Locally: Using Personas to Develop Online Communication Products for International Users, with Kirk St.Amant, is a research article about how to design for international users using personas. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Doing UX: A Workflow for Teaching and Training is an article in the proceedings of the 32nd ACM international conference on design of communication (ACM SIGDOC) that provides a workflow for academics and industry professionals who want to inject UX knowledge into their organizations. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required). Here’s the poster I presented based on the article.
Networked Rhetoric: iFixit and the Social Impact of Knowledge Work, with Nathan Franklin and Sheryl Ruszkiewicz, is a research article reporting a case study of networked interactions within iFixit’s Technical Writing Project. Here’s a link to the journal in which the article appeared (subscription required; my article appeared in volume 61, no 3).
Helping to Build Better Networks: Service-Learning Partnerships as Distributed Knowledge Work, with Kendall Leon and Jessica Getto-Rivait, is a research article that describes collaborative digital media production as a pedagogical approach to service-learning. Here’s a link to the website of the journal in which the article appears (article available for $1.00).
Designing for Engagement: Intercultural Communication and/as Participatory Design is a research article and methodology piece that describes a participatory design methodology for engaging stakeholders in culturally-diverse communication situations.
Networked Knowledges: Student Collaborative Digital Composing as Communicative Action is a research article that communicates findings from my dissertation research on student digital composing as a form of client-based service-learning. I argue that effective design of communication within a given communication infrastructure may be more important than access to the most cutting-edge modes and technologies, especially when working with resource-poor organizational clients. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Teaching UX: Designing Programs to Train the Next Generation of UX Experts, with Liza Potts, Michael Salvo, and Kathie Gossett, is an article in the proceedings of the 31st ACM international conference on design of communication (ACM SIGDOC) that argues for a participatory approach to UX design training within higher education, including building bridges to industry stakeholders. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Learning with Communities in a Praxis of New Media, with Ellen Cushman and Shreelina Ghosh, is a chapter in the book Texts of consequence: Composing rhetorics of social activism for the writing classroom that focuses on the learning potentials and social outcomes for work at the intersections of community media, new media, and community literacy. Here’s a link to the book.
Doing Multimodal Research the Easy Way: A Workflow for Making Sense of Technologically Complex Communication Situations, with Mary Silva, is an article within the proceedings for the Association for Computer Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Design of Communication. In it, we present a detailed workflow for navigating multimodal research in complex environments, including data collection, analysis, and reporting findings to a variety of audiences, both scholarly and professional. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Community Mediation: Writing in Communities and Enabling Connections Through New Media, with Ellen Cushman and Shreelina Ghosh, is an article published in Computers and Composition that discusses heuristics for the process of developing community media with local stakeholders as well as the types of composing practices these heuristics can facilitate. One of the case studies in this article comes from my development ofa video for the Allen Neighborhood Center. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
My Editorials, Magazine Articles, and Blog Articles
The How-To of Content Strategy: Teaching, Training, and Application, with Suzan Flanagan, is an editorial for the special issue of Technical Communication on work at the intersections of technical communication and content strategy. In it, we argue that we need more how-to articles on the teaching, training, and application of content strategy. Here’s a link to the journal (subscription required).
The People, Practices, and Technologies Central to Content Strategy, with Suzan Flanagan and Jack Labriola, is our introduction to the special issue of The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication on technical communication and content strategy. In it, we argue that there are significant new developments in content strategy that impact the field as a whole. Here’s a link to the article (subscription required).
Information Design and Information Architecture: Why Technical communicators Should Care About These Fields is an article with Christina Mayr for Intercom magazine on best practices for information design and information architecture for technical communicators. Here’s a link to the article.
Why We Need New Approaches to Project Management is my introduction to a Part 1 of a special issue of the International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development on UX and Project Management. In it, I argue that changing realities in the workplace call for new approaches to projects that include digital workflows, broadly defined. Here’s a link to the full editorial.
Editor’s Introduction: Defining and Operationalizing Culture for Intercultural and Global Research, Theory, and Practice is my introduction to a special issue of the journal Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization. I argue for not throwing out any particular definition of culture (e.g. global, local, technological, etc.), but instead thinking about how different definitions can work holistically.
What UX Designers Need to Know about Conversion Rate Optimization, with Hanna Gnann, is an article for Boxes and Arrows that provides UX designers and other professionals with best practices for doing CRO. Here’s a link to the full article.
Helping Design: Building Content Capacities in Non-Profits is an article for Intercom magazine on best practices for technical communicators who wish to help non-profits develop effective content strategies. Here’s a link to the magazine (subscription required; my article appeared in the January 2016 issue).
The 12 Realistic Principles of Agile UX is an article for Studio by UXPin that argues for a re-vamp to the original Agile principles for the modern design world. Here’s a link to the full article.
Teaching/Learning UX: Considerations for Academic-Industry Partnerships is an article for Boxes and Arrows magazine on how UX designers and academics can collaborate to form useful educational partnerships. Here’s a link to the full article.
Designing for Engagement: A Workflow for Participatory, Cross-Cultural Design is an article for Intercom magazine on best practices for conducting UX design with international users. Here’s a link to the magazine (subscription required; my article appeared in the March 2014 issue).
My Ebooks, White Papers, and Ebook Chapters
UX Design: The Definitive Beginner’s Guide is my ebook with Jerry Cao for UXPin’s free design library that was written as a complete guide for anyone looking to get started in UX. Here’s a link to the free ebook.
Getting Started With UX Design Process & Documentation is my pocket guide with Jerry Cao for UXPin’s free design library that was written as a quickstart guide for UX newbies. Here’s a link to the free pocket guide.
UX Partnerships With Higher Education is a chapter in TryMyUI’s free ebook This SUX: A Guide to Better User Experiences. Here’s a link to the free ebook.
How to Launch Your UX Career and Get Paid is my whitepaper with Jerry Cao for UXPin’s free design library that explains how to turn a passion for UX into a paying career. Here’s a link to the free whitepaper.
I’m always open for research, teaching, and consulting partnerships