Week 9

By Monday, March 3 at midnight

Project Two

• Complete an individual draft of the instructions. Each group member should post their 1-2 page draft to their blog.

Reading

• Thompson Handbook: p. 557-570
  

Peer Review

• Each individual should comment on two proposals. Offer feedback and advice. Incorporate any of their relevant ideas or practices into your own group.
• Look at one draft from another student and offer 100 words of comments and responses.

By Wednesday, March 5 at midnight

Reading

• Wikipedia: Usability Testing
• Usability Testing at the University of Colorado Writing Center

Project Two

• Submit draft of Usability Test. The final Usability Test should be about a page long, with a short introduction, and can be a mix of 8 to 10 guidelines or questions. Ultimately, the document should guide your testers and elicit necessary feedback. Attach document to a blog post. Add questions about your concerns for your reviewers. In the blog post, answer these questions to help your reviewers:
  
  • What are you most worried about in your instructions?
  • What area will possibly cause confusion?
  • Do you assess that in your usability test?
  • What would you like feedback on for the usability test.

By Friday, March 7 at midnight

Reading

• Wikipedia entry on Screenshots
• From Online Technical Writing: Graphics and Tables, read:
  • Graphics — An Overview
  • Drawings and Diagrams
  • Photographs

Reading Response

For this reading response, write about your past experiences with instructions and the value of effective visual content. Then, use our readings as a reference point in genereating your own ideas on effective visual content. Finally, end your reading response with a brief list of visual content that you'll need for your illustrated instructions.

Peer Review

• Each individual should complete one peer review of Usability Test. Reply to the concerns and questions that they raised in their blog post.

Project Log

• Complete 100-200 words about Week 9

Continue posting comments and replies using Principles for Comments and Replies. Please follow the guidelines for effective blog responding as discussed in this chapter. You need five (5) for this week, so respond to reading posts that have been promoted to our front page. For reference on how to do this, review How to Post Comments and Replies. Your posts should adhere to the guidelines for networking in online forums listed in the Project Checklist (TH, page 627).

No later than today, you should read through the course calendar for the following week. Make sure that you understand all of the assignments. If you have any questions, contact the instructor.