A good friend of mine once said: “Presentation is not the most important thing. It’s the only thing.” This idea can be related to this week’s course readings. I believe that the design is very important to delivering work, if not the most important. Therefore, when developing our instruction project, there should be a considerable amount of time spent on designing and working on presentation. There are several great do’s and don’ts that are recommended by the readings that can help us create a powerful and effective document.
One of the key points that I thought was important to follow was the idea of correctly guiding the reader’s direction and attention with design. Typically, a technical document contains a lot of information filled with several confusing charts and pictures. It is important to make sure your reader is following the proper path you intent for them to follow for a better understanding and achieving the correct results. If not performed correctly, the reader may have difficulty achieving their objectives, or worse fail their objectives.
Last summer, part of my internship was developing graphic user interfaces for operators to control a power plant. It is difficult to look up at the computer screen and understand what is going on given the complicated nature of the industry. But our job was not only to create a complete diagram of the power plant, but to also make the graphics user friendly for our audiences. During the development of power plant diagrams, we achieved the best results implementing common icons, dynamic graphics (such as flashing diagrams), familiar pictures, and captions to help the operations control properly. When not performed correctly, your lights turn off (and in many cases of power failure, it is due to an operator error… whoops). Even though the situations changes, the same principles can apply.
GUI's
Yeah I never really thought of a Graphic User Interface as a instructions manual but I guess it is. In my last internship I had to Process Drawings on how to make multiple parts that the company made. The sheets were later used by the machinists to understand the process of the products. As I think about the design of my process sheets I think I did not do as good of a job as I could of. My instructions were good but the design was horrible. I think sometimes good design in industry is hard to do because of the programs that the workers are using. Even if the a user made a great design on a CAD program if it is shown in a bad graphics program then it is going to look like a bad design.
Writing instructions
Depending on how you think I would say that for most people either writing the directions or using pictures comes easiest. The real challenge comes with effectively putting those two elements together. If you don't have complete instructions or your pictures don't make sense, you'll end up with a very confused and frustrated user.
Also like you said, writing with the context in mind is also quite challenging. Your example is excellent. Designing a detailed diagram is pointless if it is going to be shrunk down and thrown into a PowerPoint slide that will be viewed at a training seminar. In that case you might be better off creating a simple diagram for the training seminar and then put the detailed exploded view diagram in an owner's manual.
Andy
Using Design to Hold Attention
Design not necessarily the only thing, but definitely important
I’d have to agree that design isn’t necessarily the “only thing”. While this is an important aspect you need to tie your design into your text. Sort of weave them together. Sure one can gain a lot from design, and it ultimately does make or break your document. But in order to have anything to apply your design to, you need one other thing, content! So without content you can’t even have anything to design. Your content is what’s going to ultimately structure your design. Different types of content will really make you decide what type of design is necessary.