This blog post contains Team Ramrod's final MATLAB Illustrated Instructions and revision memo attached in PDF files.  Below are links to our Usability Test and Proposal.

Usability Test Link:

http://www.digitalparlor.org/sp08/mckelvey3/node/1472

Proposal Link:

http://www.digitalparlor.org/sp08/mckelvey3/node/1244

As stated in our proposal memo, the overall goal of our instructions were to help the reader become comfortable using MATLAB for basic arithmetic operations, entering matrices, and searching for information on more complicated MATLAB functions.

I have reviewed the changes Seth made to our instructions and am in the process of making additions. My contributions will primarily be graphics updates and additions, though I continually edit text where improvements can be made. I will get these to him tomorrow, as well as the draft of our revision memo when we have confirmed all of our changes. Since we have not received feedback from our usability test, it may be difficult for us to identify specific areas of improvement, but we will do our best. After finalizing the instructions and revision memo, we each need to finish the project-end documents, specifically the checklist and the peer evaluation.

As of now, I am waiting to hear feedback from Jacob as to what he thought of the additional content I added to our illustrated instructions draft to meet the length requirement. I added additional steps that should help prevent the user from encountering common problems that first time MATLAB users run into while learning the program. Once I get feedback, we will be able to finalize the instructions. Unfortunately, we never received any feedback on our illustrated instructions and usability test blog post, so it is up to us to try and identify what changes and additions must be completed for the final documents. Next I need to complete is revising the Revision Memo that will be drafted by Jacob once we finalize our illustrated instructions document. Lastly, I need to complete a blog post that includes a brief cover note introducing the project, a link to our Usability Test, a link to our Proposal, and has the final instructions and project revisions memo attached.

This week, our primary objective was to complete the final usability
test and the complete instructions draft. Seth began things by merging our
individual instruction drafts and filling in the rest of the document with the
content we had previously discussed. After he had completed this, I revised the
document. I completely reformatted it, as well as made some significant changes
to the text (though in fairness, Seth did the greater share on this phase of
the project). Also, I updated our usability test; from the feedback we’d
received and from reviewing the document ourselves we only identified a couple
things which needed to change. I made these changes, and finally uploaded the
instructions draft and usability test.

This week I created the Instructions draft based on both mine and Jacob's initial drafts, while incorporating the feedback we had received from our ENGL421 peers. I also completed the second and third sections of the instructions based on the previous plans Jacob and I had discussed via emails. Then I passed the document on to Jacob so that he could edit any corrections and revised the usability test document to relate better to our instructions draft. After we receive feedback on our instructions and usability test drafts, Jacob and I will need to edit them based on the feedback and also add additional content to our instructions, which is currently short of the length requirement.

I also completed the instruction and usability test draft for another group that use the program Pro-E. From this I have gotten a couple other ideas that I will try to incorporate in our final instruction revision.

Attached is Team Ramrod's complete instructions draft for our project on the usage of MATLAB. Following is the final draft of the usability test. Thank you in advance for any and all feedback.

This week, our primary achievement was the completion of the usability test draft. I did the appropriate research for the usability draft, looked at both of our instructions drafts and extrapolated what I thought the last two sections would turn out to be. After this, I created the draft of the usability draft and sent it to Seth. He reviewed it, made a couple of changes, and posted it.

In the upcoming week (excluding spring break), we are going to work on getting the instructions draft finished up. I'm only tasked with drafting the first section of the instructions, which we already sort of did for the individual draft. I will work on finishing up this section, as well as working on improving images. I will also see if Seth needs any help on the other sections of the document, as well as reviewing and revising his work.

This week our team completed a Usability guide for our MATLAB instructions. Jacob completed the draft and I did a few modifications and additions before posting it on the website. So far we have got one positive comment about the overall layout of the document with section headings, flow, and how we gave the user a chance for additional comments that may not have been addressed in any of the other sections. So after receiving instructor comments we will complete any edits to the usability test document and I will also begin working on the second and third sections of our Illustrated Instructions over the break in preparation of the Wednesday, March 19 deadline for the draft.

Attached below is a copy of our Usability Test Draft, along with both of our Illustrated instructions drafts. Both instruction drafts are very similiar and include background and general information on MATLAB along with the first section of insturctions.

Attached is a draft of my instructions on MATLAB. Since the draft was only supposed to be 1-2 pages, I only included the first section and a lead-in to the second section. Incidentally, this is largely the part which is my assignment, anyway, though I'll of course expand it. Any comments on the form or content would be appreciated.