English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

Date: April 12, 2009
To: Professor Rivers
From: Isaac Townsend, Group 1
Subject: Individual Activity Report 2

This activity report accounts for the work and progress I have made from April 5th to April 12th.

I set up the meeting we had planned for last week. We meet and layout out tasks and responsibilities for the coming weeks. I also filled in one of our group members who was unable to meet due to class conflicts. I wanted to make sure he knew his responsibilities, as long as what he should expect from the rest of the group.

I thought the Thompson Handbook did a good job of bringing up a lot of very valid points for researching topics. Rather than saying not to procrastinate like we hear over and over again, it brought up that you should have a sense of urgency when doing your research. I think it is a common misconception that because you start early, you are going to keep pace. Many people start early but lolly-gag and end up having to cram it all in at the last minute. I think this is where they got the saying “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.”

Date: April 5, 2009
To: Professor Rivers
From: Isaac Townsend, Group 1
Subject: Individual Activity Report 1

This activity report accounts for the work and progress I have made from March 30th to April 5th.

For our groups proposal we have decided to look at the use of heat pumps for use in a residential setting. There has been a lot of talk recently about energy usage concerns and this would be a chance to educate ourselves and others on the potential solutions, and maybe save a few dollars in energy bills along the way. Some options to be considered would be direct exchange, ground closed loop, pond loop, and standing column well system. Such options, while having a larger initial investment, could greatly reduce an individual’s heating and possibly cooling costs.

Personally, I have never heard of a White Paper before and I can imagine I am not the only one. After reading through the readings, I am still left with one question, why is it called a White Paper? Did I miss something in the readings? Anyhow, after completing the readings, I realized not only have I read a lot of White Papers, it is actually the ideal document I look for when I need information on a topic. I look for these because not only do they contain lots of information, but they typically contain both pros AND cons to a subject.

The layout for both instructions is a 7” wide page that can be continuously scrolled down. The purpose for this is to allow the user to have the instructions open while still having part of the screen to work with. The images and text were located on opposite sides of page throughout to give a consistent and predictable pattern.

This week’s readings outlined a lot of very good methods and examples of usability test that can be targeted to our instructions. As noted in the instructor blog, many of the more formal methods of testing will be out of the question for this assignment. For my instructions I plan on using document markup, survey, and summary test. I would use a read and locate test but I plan on having a rather short manual that would make this nearly trivial. I seem to be decent at recognizing when something is not designed right or does not flow, but I can’t always find a good way to fix.

Right now I have both pages set at 7" wide and one long page down so the user can scroll through them will still having screen to using the software. I would like to drop the expert set down to around 6". I also really don't care for the quality of my screenshots, if anyone has better software or methods to use I would appreciate the help.

Thanks.