Still, Brian and Amy Koerber. “Listening to Students: A Usability Evaluation of Instructor Commentary.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication, vol. 24, no. 2, 2010, 206-233.

In the article, “Listening to Students: A Usability Evaluation of Instructor Commentary,” Brian Still and Amy Koerber argue that “although further application of usability-evaluation techniques to instructor commenting might be a fruitful new approach for increasing our understanding of the instructor– student relationship, there are important differences between the teacher– student relationship and the expert–novice relationship that is usually the focus of usability testing” (209). Still and Koerber support their argument through a survey of 54 students enrolled in the same writing course. Their purpose is to show the usability issues with teacher commentary in order to discover what teachers can do to make their commentary more decipherable and helpful to students. They direct their findings to teachers. As a student and possible future teacher, I found their evidence compelling, although a little disheartening since most of the students were only interested in “correcting” the errors instead of strengthening their writing.