Author: Janice C. Redish

Ginny\'s Background

In 1979, Ginny founded the Document Design Center at the American Institutes for Research in Washington, DC, which she directed for 13 years. There, she and her colleagues studied the problems that people have with workplace documents and helped major companies and government agencies develop model print and online documents.

In 1985, Ginny set up one of the first independent usability test laboratories in North America where she and her colleagues had users come to try out interfaces and documentation for clients including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SAP, and Sony.

Since 1992, Ginny has been working with private companies and government agencies as a consultant in usability and documentation. Most of her work today is helping clients make information-rich web sites and web applications meet both business goals and users\' needs.

Ginny helps companies and agencies bring user-centered design into their processes. She greatly enjoys mentoring people who want to learn more about how to make products and processes work for people and how to communicate clearly.

Ginny is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Harvard University.
Professional Societies: Awards and Affiliations

RIGO award winner, 1995
ACM, SIGDOC

winner of the first award as Outstanding Plain Language Leader in the Private Sector, 2006
Center for Plain Language

Goldsmith award winner, 2001
IEEE, Professional Communication Society

Winner of the Ken Rainey Award for Excellence in Research, 2008; Fellow; Former assistant to the president for academic and research programs; Co-recipient of the 2004 President\'s Award
Society for Technical Communication

Co-founder; Former manager
STC\'s Usability and User Experience Community

Former treasurer
Usability Professionals\' Association

ACM, SIGCHI
Awards for Papers

Adding value as a professional technical communicator

Technical Communication, 42, 1, February 1995, 26-29. (This is the journal of the professional society, Society for Technical Communication.)

Winner of the Frank R. Smith Award for the outstanding journal article in volume 42 of Technical Communication. Overview article in a special section of seven articles on Measuring the Value Added by Professional Technical Communicators, edited by Janice C. Redish and Judy Ramey. The special section is the final report of a research project funded by the Society for Technical Communication.

Reading to learn to do

The Technical Writing Teacher, 15, 3, Fall 1988, 223-233. Reprinted in IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 32, 4, December 1989, 289-293.

Winner of the outstanding article in volume 15 of The Technical Writing Teacher.
Other Awards

The Myron L. White Award (2005)

From the University of Washington Department of Technical Communication for contributions to the field of technical communication.