English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

After doing all of the readings for the week, it seems that just like resumes, the fate of instructions can largely rely on the design and layout. One thing that always guarantees that I will not read instructions is seeing a bunch of large blocks of text with no graphics. I have found that, as the readings state, it is much easier to learn something and follow instructions when visual aids are used. Sometimes words can be confusing, especially if instructions are written at a higher level than my knowledge.

What hit the closest to home for this week was in “Instructor Blog #4: Technical Instructions.” It speaks of how successful video game instructions are built into the game so that you learn while performing the task itself. I almost always skip looking at the instructions of a new game. It just always seems easier to jump in and learn by doing. Unfortunately, in most situations you may not be able to merge the instructions directly into the task and skipping them may result in a lost life (and not just the virtual kind).

Edit 2/20: Since the job listing from my job ad analysis has been removed from Monster.com, I'll link to the description on L-3's website.

Here it is.

Again, the position is project engineer, and it's the description I was responding to (since it's identical to the one posted on Monster) is the second project engineer description listed out of three.