Assignment Worth: 3 points
Grade Received : 78%
Goal:
“Practice testing and improving instructions. Ideally, it would be nice if the instructions you choose are in some way related to your major or your future career. However, you can choose to analyze any set of instructions that can be user tested.” Taken from http://www.faculty.english.ttu.edu/fricke/ASSIGN_instructions_select.htm
Assignment:
For the Instruction Selection Memo I choose to do my instructions on my new phone, the Treo 650. We had to turn in a set of Instructions and the instruction selection memo. The memo was supposed to be approximately one page (a formal memo) to Dr. Art, that describes why you chose these particular instructions. I pretty much wanted to figure out how to work my phone and could not think of anything else to do instructions on. In the memo you also had to answer the following questions:
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Who is the intended audience for these instructions?
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What qualities of this audience are reflected in the instructions, and how?
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What are the goals (explicit and implicit) of these instructions?
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How do these instructions connect to your current academic major and/or future career plans, if at all?
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What criteria will you use for testing your instructions?
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If you cannot find a person who represents the intended audience to test your instructions, how will this affect the usefulness of your usability testing?
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If your instructions describe something that cannot be accomplished in class (for example, a 2311 course assignment), or are aimed at accomplishing a complicated goal (for example, a policy memo or set of ethical criteria), or otherwise don’t fit the format of simple stepwise directions, how will you perform and document meaningful usability testing?
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Taken from http://www.faculty.english.ttu.edu/fricke/ASSIGN_instructions_select.htm
Overall:
I was ready to get to the analysis of the assignment. The memo was not time consuming. I found it very beneficial how Dr. Fricke included questions to answer in your memo. As long as you clearly and fully answer each question you will get a good grade. Also be sure your heading is always correct. The best way to prevent minor mistakes, is to submit your assignment early!
