Spotlight on Jeanne Christiansen

Mentor Graphics

“I’ve enjoyed using Morae, and I’d like to have more opportunities. The need for usability is certainly there!” said Jeanne Christiansen, lead technical writer for Mentor Graphics in San Jose, CA. Her team is responsible for supporting three Mentor product-development divisions.

Mentor Graphics Corporation, a leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, provides products, consulting services and award-winning support for electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company employs approximately 4,000 people worldwide, and is headquartered in Oregon.

The writers at Mentor use Morae to test various documentation styles and delivery methods for their EDA - Electronic Design Automation - chip and board design, verification, and manufacturing tools.

They are now beginning to add product feature usability testing. For example, a product designer wanted to add a help panel that updated when various fields were clicked. The design didn’t display the help for all fields, was inconsistent in displaying and refreshing, and had a lot of quirks.

“We used Morae to test the help panel‚” Christiansen said. “As a result, we could show the designer how all the so-called minor inconsistencies in the interface confused customers … rather than being ‘no big deal’.”

Currently, Morae is benefiting her and her team in various ways. She said, “I can compare various users’ reactions to the same issue. Then, I can show design teams real-life customer responses to back up my recommendations.” She particularly noted how the easy recording configuration setup and synchronized video, sound, screen, and keyboard recording on a PC improves their testing results.

She added, “I can also pick up on things I missed during the study – comments, asides, facial expressions, involuntary jerks, etc.”

“Before Morae,” she laughed, “we used to have to depend on a very fast note taker!”