Purpose: My purpose in creating this communication is to provide swimmers who are comfortable with themselves in the water an evacuation route, if you will, if they were to find themselves in a rip current. My hope for this communication is to provide the swimmers with the knowledge to recognize and react to being within a rip current. The best possible outcome to be achieved with these instructions is for swimmers to immediately react and remove themselves from a rip currents force. The worst possible outcome would be for the swimmer to not recognize the threat and exhaust their selves trying to fight the strength of the rip current.
Audience: The audience for these instructions will be mostly males and females, of any race, that are between the ages of 16 and 60 that remain in a fairly high-quality physical shape. But specifically they are confident with their performance in the water. They experience no anxieties when it comes to their swimming ability.
Context: This audience will also confront these instructions as they are moving onto the beach through public accesses. They will have just arrived with family, friends or by themselves and have gather up their belongings for a day on the beach. Upon moving up the public access they will be confronted with the instructions to remind them of the dangers and procedures involved with rip currents.
Strategies: This instruction will be a little less severe. They will sit under the instructions for unconfident swimmers, which is an instructions set that will be very attention grabbing, thus making color less of a factor. The use of a diagram will still be used as well as a shorter and broader bullet list.
Medium: The instructions will be a upon a metallic sign that will sit under the sign containing instructions for unconfident swimmers. These signs will sit in the path of beach patrons as they access the beach through public accesses. It will serve as a reminder to confident swimmers. They will pass by it and be reminded of how to escape from a rip current during their recreational use of the ocean.
Testing: I will, during my next few days of work, place myself into multiple rip currents. While in these rip currents I will try to refine my directions through personal experience. I will consider what concepts are most important and what I feel through my own personal testing. I will also ask co-workers to help me through their own personal experiences. Testing for this instruction set will be undoubtedly sound.
Expert Swimmers Response
The purpose has been convered most thoroughly. Clearly, it is important to the author that the reader understand the risk rip currents pose to swimmers.
The area covered least thoroughly is the audience, if only by dint of the fact that many below the age of 16 are experienced (even expert) swimmers. Consider surfers ages 8-15, swim team members, etc. The most active participants in the water are likely to be younger people.
It seems group members have the best concentration on statement of purpose, perhaps because purpose is often the first thing we are asked to brainstorm.
The idea of metallic signs posted at the beach is a great medium (which is probably why beaches already employ this). An audio medium would be more difficult to understand, an online medium would not be pertinent to where the activity takes place and the proximity to wi-fi, and paper instructions would probably just end up littering the shoreline.
feedback
1. Again, your purpose is very clear and filled with a lot of information. It details what you are trying to achieve and what could potentially happen if people were unable to follow your instructions. You also gave a lot more information regarding the audience than the unconfident swimmer set. Your testing data will be interesting to look at and see if it is better due to personal experience.
2. The strategy for this one is a little less detailed than the unconfident swimmers. I know it will not be as intense, but it should still had a little bit more depth to the description.
3. I feel that this instruction set also did a good job or connecting to its intended goal. You effectively described what you were planning to do and you have made a clear list of ways that you are going to set up your instructions.
4. If this design set were given to the novice swimmers, then the whole instruction set would be of no use. The new swimmers would be confused and not understand the terminology used for the confident swimmers.