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Carol Barnum

When she emerged from graduate school, Carol Barnum found that her Ph.D. in English didn't have employers banging down her door, but people were asking her to do technical writing. She said 'yes' to the first of these opportunities without even knowing what technical writing was (sound familiar?). Carol has incredible tenacity...after many years, she's still teaching technical communication and consulting, and there's no retirement in sight. She's contributed to our field with her book Usability Testing and Research, but it's arguable that the fact that she's sent so many well-trained students into our field has had at least as much impact.

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Excerpts From the Interview

What I like is that I can constantly re-invent myself, usability obviously being one of those reinventions. When I entered academia, that wasn't anything anybody in the field of Technical Communication was talking about and hardly anybody was doing it.

I find myself still perpetually having to make the case with clients about why they need to do it sooner or why it costs anything to do it; why they're willing to pay for the software development or the quality assurance but the piece that's usability seems to be, 'Oh, I'm not sure we can afford that.

More About Carol Barnum

Carol Barnum is Professor of Technical Communication, Director of the Usability Center, Director of Graduate Studies, a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and recipient of STC's Jay R. Gould Award for excellence in teaching technical communication. She came to Southern Polytechnic after working for more than a decade as a copywriter in advertising and public relations. Dr. Barnum is the author of numerous articles and books on technical and professional communication. Her latest book, Usability Testing and Research is in Allyn and Bacon's "Technical Communication" series. It won the highest-level award in the STC International Publications competition. An article she co-authored with her graduate students in usability testing won the 2004 Distinguished article award in the STC journal, Technical Communication. She lives with her husband and Pogo (their cat) in Virginia Highland.