Running Head: UX RESEARCH IN ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION

Writers as Users: User Experience Research in Online Writing Instruction

Julie Christen
juliechristen@email.arizona.edu
University of Arizona

Abstract. ​This interdisciplinary paper considers scholarship from Information

Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Education, Writing Studies, and Digital
Rhetoric in order to understand existing approaches to UX research as it pertains
to online writing instruction (OWI) and to find gaps or points of connection
between these fields to improve our methods and practices for UX research in
education and OWI specifically. This paper is for online writing instructors who
want a primer on existing UX practices in education and in OWI, but it’s also for
researchers who want to apply qualitative and mixed methods research experience
to online platforms for education, particularly in writing studies.

Keywords: ​User experience, UX, online writing instruction, OWI, user-centered

design, usability, instructional design, pedagogy, digital rhetoric

Acknowledgments. ​The author would like to acknowledge Dr. Hong Cui for her
support in selecting a topic that aligns so closely with the authors’ research
interests, even if the topic does not specifically stay situated within Information
Science. The freedom to pursue interdisciplinary research topics is so appreciated.

Introduction: UX Research with Students

User experience, as defined by ISO 9241-210, includes “a person’s perceptions and responses
that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service,” and their “entire
interaction with the thing, as well as the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that result from that
interaction” (Tullis & Albert, 2013). User experience ​research​ draws from human-computer
interaction, user-centered design, and other approaches to both qualitatively and quantitatively
study user behaviors and responses in order to improve a product or service’s retention and
return rates. Industry standards for UX research consider 5 attributes of a user’s online
experience: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction (Nielsen, 2012). Other
factors like whether an interface is attractive, understandable, dependable, stimulating, and
unique are often considered (Sahid, 2016). In order to measure these attributes and factors to find
meaningful areas for improvement, UX research employs observational methods, interviewing,
questionnaires, and other qualitative methods.

UX research is crucial in open markets, where users are able to choose between, for example,
Amazon and Wal-Mart’s online marketplaces, but when it comes to education, the market need
for UX is not as apparent. For example, a student likely will not withdraw from a university
because of bad user experience on that university’s website, or even a bad user experience in an
online course. But as universities begin offering more online courses that bring in substantial
income, the lack of user advocacy in the research and design of courses (and other
technologically mediated activities) in universities is really problematic in the face of increasing
UX RESEARCH IN ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION 2

enrollment in online course offerings (Renk, 2018). As a writing instructor who teaches both
in-person and online courses, I have observed the consequences of the dearth of UX in
education, especially in student evaluations of my courses, in frustrated student emails or
messages about the design of online content, or confused students coming to office hours for
clarification on assignment sheets. Unlike in open markets, students aren’t typically given an
alternative for negative user experiences and instead students lose time and resources navigating
poorly designed courses or learning management systems. This has negative impacts on student
retention and engagement rates, which universities are strongly invested in improving (and for
good reason, as tuition prices rise). Some scholars in writing studies, and particularly technical
communication, have noted this lack of advocacy, and are starting to embed user-centered design
(UCD) practices into course design and implementation (Shivers-McNair et al. 2018). This
interdisciplinary paper follows their lead and considers scholarship from Information Science,
Human-Computer Interaction, Education, Writing Studies, and Digital Rhetoric in order to
understand existing approaches to UX research as it pertains to online writing instruction (OWI)
and to find gaps or points of connection between these fields to improve our methods and
practices for UX research in education and OWI specifically.

This paper is for online writing instructors who want a primer on some existing UX practices in
education and in OWI, but it’s also for researchers who want to apply qualitative and mixed
methods research experience to online platforms for education, particularly in writing studies.
Throughout this review of literature, I make connections to my experience teaching online
writing at the University of Arizona, as well as data from our OWI offerings here.

Online Writing Instruction and UX

Online Writing Instruction, or OWI, is a subfield of writing studies that considers digital
rhetorics, composition theory, and instructional technologies in order to design and teach online
writing courses. In addition to the normal challenges of teaching college writing -- such as issues
of knowledge transfer from one writing context to another and preparing students to write in
their specific disciplines and workplaces -- online writing courses also have an issue with lower
retention rates than face-to-face (Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo, 2006). In “Determining Effective
Distance Learning Designs Through Usability Testing,” Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo (2006),
scholars in writing studies and online writing, describe some of the field’s first iterations of
usability testing for online writing courses and provide initial guidelines for course designs in
writing studies. Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo’s work not only clarifies the need for usability
testing methodologies such as heuristic evaluation and pluralistic walkthrough in OWI, but
includes specific adjustments to methods used in industry for usability testing that make them
effective for OWI. For example, in one part of the study, a small group of participants (around 5)
were given tasks to complete while test administrators observed and noted which parts of the
design “worked well, which were easy to navigate, which were confusing, and which caused
problems for the participant[s].” Because writing courses are often small (UA’s courses are
capped at 19 in our Writing Program), small group usability testing is ideal and takes minimal
resources.
UX RESEARCH IN ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION 3

Since that article was published, UX research has moved beyond usability studies to a more
holistic understanding of experience as more than just whether a product is ​usable​.
Unsurprisingly, then, scholars have considered how OWI could benefit from UX practices in
order to improve student experience and increase retention rates in online courses. This is
important at the University of Arizona, for example, because of our massive expansion of
Arizona Online, which is an online bachelors degree program that does not charge out-of-state
tuition to its students. Arizona Online launched with 165 undergraduate students in 418 courses
in Fall 2015, and in Spring 2019 it enrolled over 1,700 students in 4,871 courses (J. Steele,
personal communication, Jul. 10 2019). The measure of student success and retention is
important to Arizona Online not only economically, but because of the university’s values for an
increasingly diverse student population. Creating this fully online degree program (without
out-of-state tuition costs) has “fundamentally changed the student population we are able to
serve” (Steele, 2019). To maintain and recruit more of these students, the online experience has
to be positive.

It’s important to note that adopting UX practices wholesale for OWI is not going to solve
students’ negative experiences with online courses and it certainly does not account for many of
the implications and values that UX operates under in industry. UX, for better or for worse, tends
to value expediency and efficiency for the sake of retaining ​customers​. When students become
users, which are akin to ​customers​, the whole prioritization of education and the values of many
disciplines in higher ed conflict. Writing studies and digital rhetoric scholars Opel and Rhodes
(2018), consider other ramifications for this post-capitalist environment students find themselves
complicit in today. For example, writing studies values the ability to critically analyze systems of
oppression, to consider how literacy plays a role in those systems, and to empower our students
to uncover those structures and enact change through effective, persuasive communication. As
Opel and Rhodes write,
At its best, rhetoric is about ​relations ​within Lyons’ “systems/complexes” (rather than the
architecture of the system itself) and particularly about ​ethical ​relations therein, if we are
to take Haas’ claim to heart. It is here that a rhetorical intervention into UCD and UX
becomes necessary: for good or ill, designers, writers, users, and readers are all
implicated agentially in the relations, the movements, the co-constructed architecture of
the rhetorical system/complex itself (p. 75).
In other words, translating UCD and UX practices for OWI requires critical investigation and
careful consideration of how various economic, institutional, financial, and other factors
influence the content and design of what we teach. Opel and Rhodes conclude by proposing a
heuristic for integrating UCD and composition classes:
“1) Learn a variety of rhetorical theories that will assist in the critical making of and
intervention in complex public spheres. 2) Examine how and why industry rhetoric
(expediency, efficiency, engagement) around “users” shapes the possibilities and
limitations of participation in civic life. 3) Interrogate the co-constructive, co-implicated
points of the rhetorical triangle (writer, audience, text) or quadrangle(add medium). 4)
Consider how industry rhetoric shapes technological ‘choices.’ 5) Investigate tactics of
resistance to systems of power. 6) Engage in intellectual and ethical action in regard to
industry rhetoric. 7) Make believe. Play.”
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These heuristics begin to blend the critical awareness of writing studies with some helpful
strategies in UX, but more work has to be considered.

Digital rhetoric has similar reservations about implementing a neoliberal method like UX into
our online writing courses. Digital rhetoric considers the technological aspects of writing and
communication and differs from UX in that UX doesn’t necessarily pay attention to politics or
ideology (Bjork 2018). Depew (2015) notes that usability testing focuses on student engagement
with the interface, while digital rhetoric considers the “persuasive and ideological nature” of the
interface. Other scholars, such as Selfe and Selfe (1994), have pointed to the need for critical
analysis of issues of race, class, and gender when it comes to interface design, but these stakes
are even more important now that online writing courses are offered at high rates in university
systems. For example, the University of Arizona offered 53 sections of online writing courses in
Summer 2019 alone, and that was in addition to the courses offered by Arizona Online. With the
university’s efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse population of students--as demonstrated
by its relatively new designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI)--these kinds of issues
have to be handled head on, and digital rhetorics offer heuristics for carefully considering the
“cultural, political, and ideological stakes of partaking in an online writing course” (Bjork 2018).

Digital rhetoric’s unique positionality offers useful frameworks for incorporating UX practices
into OWI because it recognizes that interfaces are “dynamic sites of interaction,” rather than
static texts (Bjork 2018). For example, Fandango.com uses cookies for a user's location, online
behaviors, etc., so each user’s interface will look differently depending on these factors.
Similarly, in an online writing course environment, students’ interactions with the interface and
with each other in online discussion boards changes the way they might use and contend with
these courses, so the design does not remain static as it becomes populated with student work. To
help instructors design UX testing, interpret UX results, configure interfaces, and implement
pedagogical strategies for OWI, Bjork recommends considering students’ task completion in an
online class more holistically, as a series that students come back to and interact with in an
ongoing manner (so assignment submissions shouldn’t close off the work to students, for
example). Another example is considering non-normative users, such as those with low vision,
hearing impairment, or learning disabilities, in course interface designs and e-learning materials,
with attention to best practices in universal design principles (Orero and Tor-Carroggio, 2018).
This paper does not specifically consider universal design, but it’s also an important factor in
how UX is moving as a field and how it can and should be implemented in UX.

Incorporating UX research in our OWI courses means we can make meaningful, data-informed
decisions on curriculum design in online environments. This impacts not only how courses for
students are designed, but how training and professional development materials are created for
online instructors (Greer and Harris, 2018). While curriculum design for face-to-face courses
includes creating a syllabus, assignment sheets, discussion boards, rubrics, schedules etc., online
courses require all that work plus the ability to house those documents online in a usable way,
usually in a learning or content management system. To make all of these moving parts work
together, user research, iterative design, and collaboration is necessary (Greer and Harris 2018).
User research is made up of small-scale ethnographic and qualitative studies that aim to “gather
useful insights,” which we can’t get by asking about user preferences or likability (e.g. in student
UX RESEARCH IN ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION 5

evaluations of courses), and aren’t meant to achieve political ends (e.g. demonstrating whether a
course is effective in increasing student retention (Hall, 2013). Instead, these insights are unique
to the current set of users (or class of students) and change course design elements based on
individual class dynamics. In iterative design, processes are “revisable, flexible, dynamic, fluid,
circular, and open-ended” and encompass a “comprehensive set of user stories” (Klein, 2016).
These user stories should include several questions about user behavior, like where the users are
coming from, how they will access the product in question, where the user ends up at task
completion, and what happens if a task is interrupted.

Finally, Greer and Harris argue that students need to be collaborative partners in course design
alongside​ instructors: “The complex needs of writing students require a collaborative design
practice, in which instructors and designers work together to guide students through complex
tasks such as developing a thesis or integrating sources into a paper. In this collaborative,
constructionist model, the researcher, designer, developer, and content expert all work together
in real time” (17). Jones (2018) makes a similar claim about human-centered design for testing
syllabi in online classes. She argues that students should be treated as “expert end-users” of
syllabi and that doing UX-driven testing can help alleviate misalignments between student and
instructor understandings of the purpose and function of the content in a syllabus. Other
iterations of user-centered design in online courses involve participatory-based methods, in
which students help shape the content of the class and the way the content is presented and
organized (Shivers-McNair, 2018).

Issues for Teachers to Consider in Online Courses

While translating UX practices for use in OWI is important for retention and student success, it’s
equally critical to consider the instructor experience, both in terms of research and design
(Joyner, 2018, Garreta-Domingo et al, 2018, and Borgman and McArdle, 2019). For example,
instructors who design online courses need to embrace principles of both user interface design
and learning design (Joyner, 2018). For example, the principle of distributed cognition from
learning design is often overlooked in interface design, which can create overwhelming
interfaces where students don’t know where to start or where to look for certain important course
materials, like the syllabus (Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo, 2006). Joyner explains that paying
attention to distributed cognition means
human cognitive tasks like reasoning, remembering, and acting could be offloaded onto a
computer interface to lighten the cognitive load on the user. As applied to education, this
suggests using an interface to lessen the attention paid by students to course
administration to support greater attention to course content (p. 92).
This can look like offloading through announcements, documentation (e.g. reference guides in
the course materials), or open assessment design (as with open-book, -note, -video, -forum tests
that privilege resourcefulness over memorization).

Distributed cognition also comes into play in the expectations we have for instructors who design
and teach their own online courses (Garreta-Domingo, Hernández-Leo, & Sloep, 2018).
Garreta-Domingo et. al’s central assertion is that instructors cannot be expected to “master and
orchestrate the increasingly complex and diverse array of tools, resources, activities, data and
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people that make up learning ecosystems,” because it’s not possible to have that level of
expertise in so many disciplines at once (21). This argument highlights important connections
between teaching and design; for example, like design, teaching is “a highly complex activity
that draws on many kinds of knowledge (Mishra and Koehler 2006)” that “occurs in
ill-structured, dynamic environments and, therefore, teaching also deals with what are known in
design as wicked problems (Rittel and Weber 1973; Opfer and Pedder 2011; Sloep 2013)”
(Garreta-Domingo, 2018). Finally, teaching is iterative like design is; “it seldom happens just
once; there is a continuous enactment and tweaking of activities and resources (Pardo et al. 2015;
Bates 2015).” In an ideal world, educators would collaborate with instructional designers and
educational technologists in order to make the designs of their courses more friendly to
human-centered design principles. It’s worth noting, however, that institutional and economic
constraints can make this vision difficult to implement.

Other considerations for instructors who would like to implement UX practices in their online
courses include teaching behaviors, such as the PARS approach developed by Borgman and
McArdle (2019). PARS is a heuristic that asks instructors to be Personal, Accessible,
Responsive, and Strategic with their online courses and students. Examples of these strategies
are noted in the table below.

Instructor Behavior Personal Accessible Responsive Strategic

Cultivating relationships virtually with students ✅

Creating an identity and presence as an online instructor ✅
Setting boundaries for instruction/grading/virtual
availability
✅
Handling the extra written communication ✅ ✅ ✅
Creating an entire course prior to the class ever meeting ✅ ✅ ✅
Responding to student writing in digital environment ✅ ✅
Being strategic in pedagogy and facilitation of a course ✅ ✅
Cultivating support from the WPA or department chair ✅ ✅ ✅
These behaviors are student-centered in that they value students’ contributions and interactions
holistically, taking into account students’ personal relationship needs, needs for timely feedback
on student writing, and needs for student advocacy within the broader institution.

Learning Management Systems in UX Research

Alongside curriculum design and instructor behaviors, online instructors have to implement these
aspects in online environments, usually designated learning management systems (LMS) that
house online courses. In some cases, UX research of an LMS is necessary for understanding
UX RESEARCH IN ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION 7

instructor adoption of the LMS or their experience working in that system (Gautreau, 2011 and
Almarashdeh, 2016), but it’s not typical that instructors are allowed to select their own LMS. For
instance, Brightspace’s Desire2Learn, or D2L, platform was adopted university-wide at the
University of Arizona. As an instructor who cannot choose her own LMS, I still think the
findings in this research are useful, like how administrative support and the ability to self-select
training content were the most important factors for faculty when selecting an LMS (Gautreau,
2011). As it pertains to OWI, this might be akin to offering students extra office hours, or asking
students to fill out a survey or questionnaire about what they would like to learn about the course
design (e.g. assignment sheets, readings, major projects, etc.) before the bulk of the course gets
underway.

Another (perhaps obvious) aspect of learning management systems that must be considered is the
impact on student learning. Using a UX lens to consider student outcomes, course evaluations,
and student perceptions of two different LMS interfaces, Nichols (2016) argues that the LMS is
central to a students’ experience with an online course, and not just a shell for the content. For
students, UX is comprised of technology (such as the LMS), pedagogy (or teaching theories and
practices implemented in curriculum), and interactions students have with each other and the
instructor that facilitate learning. Changing any of those three things will have an impact on the
students’ overall user experience, because these factors are interdependent (Nichols, 2016).
Activity-centered design, in which researchers learn by observing user behaviors as they interact
with the LMS, is a helpful framework for evaluating student user experience (Sahid, 2016). In
Sahid’s study, this qualitative approach considered “subjective feelings of users towards an LMS
product before, during and after use” (PDF, 2) with a questionnaire that asked users to assess
whether the LMS was 1) goal oriented or task oriented, 2) had an original or beautiful design,
and 3) attractive, pleasant, or friendly. This way, both the usability of the LMS can be recorded
through observations while also taking into account student needs and preferences with the
objective of improving the design of the LMS.

Future Directions in OWI: UX Practices We Can Teach Our Students

The next steps for incorporating UX methods and mindsets into OWI include involving students
in our UX processes, not just as participants in user research, but as researchers and designers of
course materials themselves. Opportunities for involving students in the design and revisions of
course materials align with principles from the Conference on College Composition and
Communication (CCCC), which is the guiding organization for writing studies. The CCCC
Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments
outlines four guiding principles for OWI, which Greer and Harris (2018) interpret using a UX
lens (which I’ve outlined in the table below).
CCCC Principle UX Alignment

Accessibility Empathy mindset and application of user research

Focus on Writing, not User-centered design model instead of a system-centered design model
learning the new technology
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Translate Face-to-Face “A student-experience approach to teaching online helps to clarify which

Principles principles, pedagogies, and practices work best in the face-to-face classroom”
(Greer and Harris, 2018, p. 18)

Commitment to Ongoing Incorporating user research and feedback on online courses (see Miller-Cochran
Research and Rodrigo, 2006 and 2009 for specific methods with which to do so).
Based on this position statement, not only do UX and OWI have common goals and values, but
implementing UX activities and methods should be common practice in online writing courses as
in Shivers-McNair et. al’s 2018 article, “User-Centered Design In and Beyond the Classroom:
Toward an Accountable Practice.” While UX processes and research are already implemented in
design courses in higher education (Satterfield, Tredway, and Woelfel, 2019) and in some
limited cases in public education (Strutin-Belino, 2019), consistent pedagogical implementation
of UX in online writing courses lags behind. Satterfield, Tredway and Woelfel’s study includes a
full design sprint1 with a problem-solving project at California State University Long Beach,
where design students envision a future for CSULB by 2030. While that kind of project is not
necessarily relevant to OWI, incorporating practices such as “How might we” statements into
online writing courses could help improve student experience of the online course ​and​ give
students useful heuristics for pursuing research projects in online environments. These
statements are meant to “encourage divergent thinking,” which could get writing students to
think differently about how communication can be used to solve social problems or to
communicate difficult problems more effectively to a broader audience (Satterfield, Tredway and
Woelfel, 2019, p. 178). For example, the question “How might we communicate measurable
climate change issues to climate deniers in a persuasive way,” is relevant to writing studies
because of its emphasis on audiences and persuasion, but also incorporates the problem-solving
positionality of UX.

Much of the social justice work that writing studies interests itself in is about advocacy and
giving voice to excluded populations--people who are disenfranchised by systems of economic,
political, and social power--so advocacy should be a priority as a design principle to implement
in an online course. Additionally, much of the rationale for providing more online and hybrid
options for students in higher ed is to include non-traditional students (e.g. students who are
outside the 18-22 age range, who work full-time, who might be parents or have other family
responsibilities that don’t allow for in-person coursework). This means OWI and
distance-learning aims are aligned with advocacy and inclusion as well. Strutin-Belino’s (2019)
understanding of human-centered as a focus on “deeply understand[ing] our users’ needs,” aligns
with rhetorical principles and the value for audience awareness and analysis that we teach our
students in writing classrooms. If we can help our students think about their writing as something
that someone will ​use​ to enact change or solve a problem, then it’s reasonable to consider the
audience as users. Finally, ethical and holistic principles apply to OWI because of composition’s
commitment to building personal relationships with students through thoughtful feedback and
creating collaborative spaces in our classrooms. As the CCCC Position Statement argues, our
courses should “provide students with opportunities to apply digital technologies to solve
substantial problems common to the academic, professional, civic, and/or personal realm of their
1
​A “time-constrained, five-phase process that uses ​design​ thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing
a new product, service or a feature to the market” (Knapp 2016)
UX RESEARCH IN ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION 9

lives.” By considering our students and the topics they choose to pursue in their writing ethically
and holistically, we can use UX principles to better align with CCCC values.

Other UX methods, like participatory-based research (Satterfield and Fabri, 2017) are already
being used in writing classrooms and online environments (Jones, 2016). A participatory,
human-centered design approach, according to Jones,
moves designers to embrace the fact that design is not apolitical and encourages them to
understand that when users are provided an opportunity to be involved in truly
participatory design practices, the different types of knowledge, perspectives, and
experiences that come to the fore have the potential to result in designs that are more
efficient and equitable (489).
Other useful practices include Sekhri’s (2019) “Foundational Phase” of UX processes, which
emphasizes determining user needs early and working collaboratively to create a project that is
satisfactory and includes all voices. In OWI, this can look like Shivers-McNair’s 2018 article,
which describes a course experience in which user-centered design holds both students and the
instructor accountable for agreed-upon course goals and projects, while incorporating design
thinking (empathize, ideate, prototype, test, and refine) in low-stakes assignments (p. 37).

Limitations and Conclusion

This literature review provides important context for where UX and writing studies are in terms
of relevant overlaps for OWI. While I have highlighted some of these points of connection and
acknowledged potential ways forward, it’s important to also be realistic and note some of the
challenges and resistances that could come from implementing UX methods and practices in
OWI as highlighted by Greer and Harris (2016). For example, institutional resistance is likely to
come from a lack of support (financial and other) from administration, especially when elements
of OWI are constrained by mandatory LMS use or other requirements that impact accreditation
and other hierarchical structures at the university level. Economic challenges include lack of
funding for designing new online courses, or the fact that many of the faculty who staff these
classes are contingent and therefore make arguments for continuing professional development
(which can be costly) worthwhile for the university. Beyond those factors, cultural resistance can
come from a fear of new technology or concerns about the neoliberal nature of UX practices (e.g.
students as customers, emphasis on efficiency and retention for profit, etc.).

Despite these obstacles, the methods and mindsets of UX have a lot to offer writing studies and,
more specifically OWI. While course designs like Shivers-McNair’s and Jones’ involve
participatory methods that allow students to assume more active roles in their education, more
research is needed in online environments to establish methods that are user-centered and also
account for issues of diversity and inclusion, or for social justice topics. The UX of online
writing students is so complex, with studies needing to account for the technology, pedagogy,
and student interactions with peers and the instructor (Nichols, 2016). Because these elements
are interdependent, studies should be locally situated and take into account institutional,
economic, social, and political factors. In other words, doing research in UX for writing studies
means taking a page from the writing studies playbook and incorporating a rhetorical analysis, of
sorts.
UX RESEARCH IN ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION 10

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