This thesis looks at 20th century American marriage counseling compatibility surveys to argue that surveys—as a form of technical communication—have historically made assumptions about users’ gender, race, ability, and religious identities, which in turn, have had material effects on users’ lives. I am specifically interested in the way that the scientific, quantitative, and (more broadly) positivistic underpinnings of these surveys shaped how participants could answer survey questions. I use conventional content analysis to read three historical compatibility surveys to demonstrate the need for technical communicators to attend to the ways in which their writing and design choices might perpetuate notions of a “normative” user.
Read
