Dang, this page needs to be updated. More stuff is here.
My dissertation, “Ease in
Composition Studies”
(
PDF),
covers a huge amount of ground, showing the connection of ease to
contemporary computer technologies as well as British and American
composition curricula. This version should be used, not the one which
appears at the University of Florida. The second and third chapters
are the most interesting, but the history in the fourth chapter is
also worth reading.
For a shorter summary of much of my argument about ease, read “Ease and Electracy”
( PDF),
which will soon be published in New Media/New Methods: The Turn
from Literacy to Electracy..
“The Ideology of Ease” was the first work about ease which I published.
The essay “Extreme Usability and
Technical Communication” ( PDF) investigates the phenomenon of
“extreme” usability as an example of oversimplified
concepts of usability. I show that these concepts defeat the original
intent of usability theory and practice, and are inconsistent with
user-centered design processes.
Note that since I’ve written this essay, I've found a few great examples of extreme usability: Usability@90mph: Presenting and evaluating a new, high-speed method for demonstrating user testing in front of an audience, and Xtreme Usability: A Case Study.