(section 091)
February 24th: What Webpages Tell Us about
User Documents
Announcements
Reading Quiz #2 and Midterm Fun
A midterm only happens once a semester and tonight's a good night! Logon to Moodle to access Reading Quiz #2 and the midterm. Both should be released at 6:35 pm. It might help to do Reading Quiz #2 first, but you may do them in either order.
Reading Quiz #2 covers Technical Writing 101 chapters 6 & 7.
I don't think it's the wisest idea to try to conduct a lecture, discussion, and group work exercise either before or after this exam. Instead, I have things you can work on individually and at your own pace. After you finish both Reading Quiz #2 and the midterm , work on the items below quietly. When you finish, you're free to go.
Technical Writing 101: Chapter 8
Below are the highlights from chapter 8. We won't go over chapter 8 as a class tonight, but definitely review for next week.
Chapter 8 Highlights:
Well, this was supposed to be for next week, but I made a mistake in the syllabus. We'll come back to this next week, but here's the discussion.
English 4182/5182 (taught in the Fall) goes into much more detail on the perceptual, cultural, and rhetorical elements of visual communication. We will focus on visuals as procedural elements this semester. And, yes, I recognize the seemingly arbitrary boundary. As Biggie says "Mo' theories, mo' problems."
- Rich media: video clips, audio clips, and animation
- Vector images
- Bitmap Images
- Purpose guides; efficiency reigns p. 132
- Lossy compression p. 133
- Image SIZE matters
- Images guide readers/viewers eyes
- Relative size can direct a reader's attention
- Entire screen shoots are rarely beneficial
- Uniformity of size
- Linking vs embedding
- Video guides are probably going to become more important in technical communication. Traditional text-based instruction isn't going to die out, but it might become less prevalent.
Webpage "Reading"
I would like you to pick a webpage and
analyze its features. If we assume that webpages are supposed to be for the
user, then we can assume that a user-centered design would be best (we can
critique that assumption, too). Let's consider ease of navigation to be a top
priority for an effective webpage.
Some questions to ask about "good" webpages:
-
What is the purpose of the webpage (or
website)?
-
Who is the primary audience? Secondary?
Tertiary? Etc.?
-
How does a user navigate the website?
What facilitates navigation?
-
How can the user find "help"? (for
navigating...some might say all webpages offer help)
-
Thinking from the audience's
perspective, how useful is the information that's available?
-
Can you quantify the layers of
information? For instance, your ideal user has to sift through how much information to accomplish an obvious goal--you need not explore all goals. Basically, how many clicks does it take...
-
What's aesthetically pleasing about the
website? Why?
-
What's not aesthetically pleasing about
the website? Why?
-
Finally, what would make the page
better for a user?
I realize that much of your analysis will
be based on your own subjective tastes. I hope we can explore that further in a
larger class discussion. Choose any website you'd like, but be aware of your own
expertise and familiarity if it's a site you go to frequently.
Add a page to your own website to record this
information. You should have a link to this page from your homepage. Do your best to get this up before you leave tonight. I should have all your webpages linked to the Classmates Webpages page. This will
help us easily locate the pages during our discussion, which might happen on March 23rd (after spring break).
Sample User Docs
Below are two user documents for products. I would like you to review one of the documents and construct a brief analysis, which you'll briefly--very briefly--argue, of the ideal user for the document. I want you to make assumptions about the ideal user and defend them using analogies or metaphors. For instance, you might say something like...
"The ideal users for this document would be people with knowledge of text-based operating systems, such as Unix, because the products lacks a graphical user interface that would make a general audience comfortable." You don't need to do research like you do for the Persona Research assignment, but this exercise should make you think about defining users in generalized ways.
If you're in Rows 1, 2, and 3, review the first user document. If you're in Rows 4, 5, and 6, review the second user document. After you've reviewed them, create (yet another) webpage where you describe the following about the users:
- Who is the ideal user?
- What level of technological literacy does the primary audience have?
- Compare to non-computer skills (piloting, needle work, video editing, etc.)
- Possibly list software proficiencies
- Occupation assumption(s)
- Hobbies/pastimes assumptions
I didn't do the best job scanning these
images, so bear with me. You'll have to scroll horizontally and vertically to
read everything.
Planning for User Doc #2
What instruments would work well for our
next assignment? Hmm...search engines were good for the first User Doc, but we
need to move beyond obvious Internet-based functions. One thing's for sure,
though, we're going to have a much larger planning memo/document and more
analysis on user testing. Also, we're going to try and see my goal of
"inspiring" the user through to fruition. Does anyone have any documents that
advocate or encourage users to explore the functions/functionality of
instruments?
Although I've stressed and used
computer-based examples overwhelmingly in our discussions, you are more than welcome
to document other kinds of technology. Of course, we're going to do the usability testing
in class, so your instrument would have to fit that
constraint. However, I would consider out-of-class user testing if you
documented it well.
Planning for User Doc #2 User
Testing
We'll have more in-depth planning documents
this time around. Unfortunately, we aren't getting live subjects...er...participants from
outside class, but I know all of you will work hard to help your fellow
classmates by being as objective as possible. The first change,
though, will be that I want you all to come up with three personas for the
instrument you'll document. I also want you to include the following:
Remember, you need to build on your skills
throughout the semester (and from the previous semester, year, or what have
you), so I want to see some sophistication. Let me show you what a student
did a couple years ago...
User Doc #2
User Doc #3
Have a rough draft of the above planning document (think of it as a memo if you'd like) to accompany your actual user document next week, which will be the steps the user will carry out to do something. Who has an idea of what they'd like to do?
Before We Go...
Keep up with the reading. We'll discuss Ch. 8, 9, 10, and 11 next week after we go over the midterm. Our discussion will focus on chapters 8 and 9 because chapters 10 and 11 are more for reference...but definitely read them!
Don't forget to have your rough draft of User Doc #2 for next week's user test.
.. |
Aaron
A. Toscano's Homepage
