English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

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.

Over this week’s readings, I found the information from the TCT and instructor’s blog to have useful tools for optimizing the usability for instructions.
For the usability test, I think I am going use survey testing. For this assignment I feel that it will be a more effective way to process information. I don’t know if there are many people who have rice cookers, so instead of people buying one, I want to have feed back to see if the user would have any trouble before starting the process and wasting time and money.

I’m sure at some point we have all used products that we thought had poor usability. Did they really? Or were we blind to see the true operation of a certain product? I know there are a lot of products out there that are blatant poor designs but others are just being used improperly. Looking at the website with all of the “problem products” was pretty entertaining. Yes, there are some bad designs on there, but who says there isn’t some user error? Does everything we use in our daily life need to have huge red letters instructing people on the proper operation of a tool/product/device?

The types of usability tests that I will employ upon turning in my instructions project will include document markup, and a read and locate test. These tests will be performed during a peer review. The three main questions I want to focus on answering are ‘Can they find it?’, ‘Can they understand it?’, and ‘Can they do it?’. These will help me determine whether my instructions are getting the point that I want them to make across to the readers.

As stated in chapter 12 the context in which your document will be used may play a big roll in what kind of document you actually create. I took this into consideration because I am doing instructions on how to take apart two different guns. I figured that if someone were to be disassembling a firearm they would most likely have grease and oil on there hands. That’s why I decided to make a document that can be printed and laminated to protect it from the dirty hands and surfaces that may come into contact with it.

Editing a paper I wrote is one of my least favorite things to do after I have just written it. Part of me just does not like reading what I wrote even though I know I did a good job at it. I guess it could be compared to actors who do not like to watch the movies they are in. Something about seeing yourself on screen as someone else just does not sit right with them.

The readings this week focused on editing and revising your documents so they achieve everything you as an author set out to achieve. The readings form TCT gave a very detailed break down of the editing process and steps involved. I think one of the most helpful parts of this reading though was the tables with some of the most common grammatical mistakes or the list of words that are commonly misused. While writing our instructions for the project making sure they are free of grammatical and usage errors goes a long way to making the instructions look much more professional and finished.

Of the four usability tests that were introduced in the readings, I feel that a document markup will be the most effective for my project (along with feedback to a few survey questions). In case you don’t know, my instructions will include the steps necessary for creating a histogram using Microsoft Excel 2007. As with most instructions for software programs, the best way to determine the effectiveness of those instructions is to have members of your audience use them to achieve the task at hand.

The reading in the TCT this week makes me feel nostalgic. All the editing marks and proper editing procedures truly reminded me of elementary school when I first learned them. I had no idea that they would be staying with me this long and apply to so many things in life. Also, the reading from this weeks Instructor blog surprised me when it said “how long it took to break into the corporate mainstream.” It’s hard to imagine a better way to improve your product than to actually make it more usable. Nowadays making products more usable is a big industry itself (like tech support, for instance).

This week’s readings, chapter 12 from TCT as well as instructor’s blog 6, focus on the actual revision and editing process involved in the production of a professional technical document. This relates directly to our current project, in which we would like to create useful instructions based on a user-centered approach. From TCT, the editing process is broken down into several distinctive levels, namely revision, substantive editing, copyediting, and proofreading. Each of these levels takes into regard a different aspect of the technical document.