Subject: Land Navigation with a compass and a map- Orienteering
Purpose: My purpose in creating this instruction set is to educate people on how to use a map and compass to effectively navigate across land and find their way from a starting point to their destination.
Audience: The audience will be beginners who have never oriented before and are most likely under the age of fifteen. This group will be mostly youth who are interested in outdoor activities in the woods either through family interests in the area or the audience may be affiliated with a group such as the Boy Scouts. The audience may also be someone whose interest was merely peaked and wants to understand what orienteering is general sense.
Context: The viewer will be the average citizen who may Google orienteering to get a simple set of instructions on how it works and not have to spend the money on an instructor and a class. This set could also be downloaded for an instructor to easily distribute to group of beginners.
Strategies: The set will focus on simple steps and simple pictures for those who don’t know the terms of orienteering. The set will also only include the basic parts of the equipment, how know where you are going on a map, and how to get a bearing with a compass with some pacing instructions. The feeling of the instruction set will be that of fun.
Medium: The instructions will be in document format for uploading to a webpage and meant for printing. This will lend to the idea of relative availability for all.
Arrangement: Parts include a Table of Contents, the Opening, the Body, and the Closing. Opening will present the situation to the reader so that the reader can tell the document is meant for them. The Body will start with a list of necessary items and defining information then go straight into the steps on each of the different methods. The body will follow with advisements and troubleshooting. The closing will have suggestions to the audience for testing what they have learned as well as inform the reader that there is still more on orienteering that can be learned.
Testing: I plan to present this set to a Scout troop and have them evaluate the instructions via some of their younger scouts.
Orienteering for Beginners/Kids
1. You seem to have a good understanding of your audience and the arrangement. Thought I think for beginners, especially under the age of fifteen, the format seems way too complicated.
2. I'd like to know more about the medium. Will it be a pdf?
3. Our audiences are a like in that they are beginners.
4. What if you printed this out on a brochure sized paper (meaning about 1/3 width of normal page)? If could be laminated so that if someone is lost in the woods you can still use the information and it will be protected.
For beginners i think its best to have a portable option to remind them of the steps involved when they need it most. Also, you should make the instructions colorful and simple to keep the kid's attention.
Review
The element that you cover most thoroughly is arrangement. I found it interesting how you clearly gave thought to how you would want it set up if these instructions were meant for you and how you tell the readers that more can still be learned.
The element that is covered least thoroughly is medium. You should think about what you want the webpage to look like, not just that you want it to be a printable version.
Even though our topics are completely different, we both break up our instructions into different sections to make them easier to understand.
If these instructions were designed for a different audience, perhaps an expert, they would be unhelpful. They only give the basics, and while this is good for beginners, experts would already know how to do these things. You would have to add more information to hold an experts attention.
P.S.
What about girl scouts? How could you cater to both?