Making the Most of Interactivity Online Version 2.0: Technical Communication as Procedural Architecture

INTRODUCTION The question of interactivity in technical communication is complex. First, building interactive technical documents means relinquishing some amount of control over authorship, readership, and document presentation, each of which can be frightening for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the uncertainty involved in this process. Second, interactivity in technical documentation must also compete with interactivity in entertainment, a moving industry target with billions of R&D dollars invested each year. For example, a gamer who grows up with commercial video games is likely to shun poorly designed “serious” video games (Michael and Chen 2006) just as a consumer with an iPhone or iPod Touch will be annoyed by prolonged, awkward interactions with a rudimentary touch screen. Poorly designed interactive technologies may suffer from a lack of credibility, a lack of engagement, or a lack of effectiveness in training users or transmitting information from author to audience. Third, thinking deeply about interactivity necessitates the crossing of disciplinary boundaries and the consideration of other areas of research such as information architecture, experience design, and human factors usability. Such fields often have their own definitions of and ideas about interactivity, ideas that are not always compatible with traditional practices in technical communication. Finally, when these information practices occur online, there are numerous other factors that must be addressed because of the nature of the medium. These factors range from the technical (for example, systems that are too highly interactive may put a strain on server resources) to the practical (for example, online readers may have already formed information-seeking habits from their prior interactions with other media types. All of these complex issues must be considered when pondering the nature of interactivity online. Despite its complexity, interactivity is a critical component of the informational experience in online environments, and one deserving of our attention (Chou 2003). Rarely is online information today presented in a linear format that reads as a cohesive unit to be parsed from top to bottom; instead, readers are asked to participate in different ways to move from one unit of information to the next. This movement may rely on a reader’s clicking of hyperlinks, on her use of multimedia buttons in a video application to fast forward or rewind, or on her control of a virtual avatar to transport to the correct meeting location in a virtual world. Independent of the specific interactive implementation is the fundamental need of the computer system and its human users to be in tune with one another as this process unfolds. To do this well, we need multiple disciplinary perspectives, even though this further blurs already nebulous boundaries between technical communication and related fields concerned with the design and assessment of media for communication. As the recent special journal issue Designing Virtual Worlds, guest edited by Sean D. Williams (2008) suggests, technical communication and digital media in particular are becoming more intertwined; one result of this is that virtual worlds, game-based learning, and cutting-edge tutorial systems now require more sophisticated types of audience interactivity. In these types of