Communication Skill

Learning Outcomes: in this project, you will learn and apply:

• An understanding of how visual design impacts the meaning of a written document.
• The importance of visuals and clean design to support the narrative in instructions.
• Ways to write effective, ethical instructions.
• How to choose a logical pattern for a set of instructions.

 Overview.  A valuable communication skill you will often draw upon in workplace writing is to design documents and deliverables that highlight valuable information and to instruct in a concise, complete and informative manner.  

For this project deliverable, you will produce five components:

1. an analysis of a poorly designed document,
2. an analysis of a poorly written set of instructions
3.  a written set of instructions for one small procedure of web tool you use that incorporates clean, effective design (Facebook, Gmail, Weebly – your choice!) and
4. A screencast video overview of your instructions 
5. a cover memo that explains your choices in both design and instruction.

See the next pages for additional guidelines.

 Creating the Four Written Components of the Project Deliverable:

• Writing the Design Analysis (1 page).  Use the elements of clean design shown in the lecture and in Chapter 5 of your book to analyze the poorly designed document you selected.  Concentrate on one element at a time (size, headings, white space, consistency, etc) and explain how and why that element is handled in this document, and how or why that is a good or poor design choice.  For each element, suggest ways the design can be made cleaner and more user-friendly. 
• Writing the Instructions Analysis (1 page).  Use the checklist for writing instructions and the information in Chapter 10 and in the lectures to analyze the poorly written instructions.  Be sure to keep the audience in mind!  Concentrate on one element or aspect at a time (audience, structure, situation, intended use, safety issues, ethical considerations, conciseness, etc) and explain how and why that element is handled this way in this set of instructions.  For each element or aspect, suggest ways the instructions can be made more appropriate for the audience and situation.
• Writing the Instructions (1 page).  Select a web tool, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Gmail, Weebly – anything is fine, as long as I can access it easily to see if your instructions work. J  Select one SMALL (the smaller the better, I promise!) procedure – for example, “Logging In” or “Setting up a New Account,” and write a set of instructions for it.  Be sure to use actionable verbs  Use the information from the lectures and Chapter 10 of your book to formulate these instructions, keeping elements of clean, good design in mind.  Keep in mind this will be the same thing you use for your screencast, so it should be "video instruction" friendly.  
• Writing the Memo (1 page).  I am the audience for the memo.  Use elements of good, clean design as you write this memo.  As your professor, I want to know the following:

• Design Analysis – Why did you choose the elements you did, and what did you learn?

• Instructions Analysis – Why did you choose the elements/aspects you did, and what did you learn?
• Instructions – Who is your audience?  What is your purpose?  Why did you choose this tool?  What elements of design did you incorporate, and why?  What difficulties did you discover? 

• Creating the Screencast

• Your audience for the screencast is an audience of mixed technical levels.  
• Your screencast should be no more than 10 minutes long
• For assistance in getting started, view the Screencasting Overview: