This is an optional activity.

What You Can Do

Maroon and orange robot looking at a piece of paperUse Copilot to analyze the user documentation you’ve chosen for your project and ask it to provide some feedback on how to improve documentation. You’re still responsible for evaluating the accuracy of Copilot’s advice and deciding how to implement the revision.

Why I Want You to Do It

Generative AI can do a lot more than just write your assignment for you (which we all know is a violation of the Honor Code). This activity shows you a way that you can use AI as a helper. If you’re not sure where to start your user revision or you just want some help, use this strategy to identify on some aspects of the documentation that need to be revised.

Show/Hide Relevant Course Objectives

Relevant Course Objectives

  • Analyze the context; determine appropriate audiences for or users of planned communications; assess needs of global audiences and people with disabilities. [CLO 2]
  • Practice workplace genres related to specific fields (e.g., proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, technical specifications and slide decks); illustrate how genre conventions can serve as heuristics and as principles of arrangement [CLO 3]
  • Design and evaluate strategies for testing the usability and overall effectiveness of documents [CLO 5]
  • Illustrate the ethical and human implications of research findings and workplace products on diverse audiences [CLO 6]

Where You Can Find Help

How You Do It

  1. Decide how you want to share your user documentation with AI. You have these options:
    • Upload: Upload a PDF of your sample document.
    • Paste: Copy the sample document and paste it into the prompt.
    • Link: Copy and paste in a link to your sample document.
    All three of these options should work, but your AI experience may differ (YMMV, right?). If one doesn’t work, try another.
  2. If you are uploading a PDF, prepare your document. Download it if necessary, and save the sample as a PDF.
  3. Open the Copilot Prompt to Analyze Your User Documentation.
  4. Open Copilot in your web browser and log into the tool using your VT.EDU username and password.
    Allowed Use of AI

    You can use Copilot or another Generative AI tool of your choice in this activity to help determine areas of the User Documentation to revise.

    Be sure to save the responses AI gives you. You will need them later when you submit your work.

    Prohibited Use of AI

    You cannot ask AI to revise the user documentation for you. Doing so directly violates the Cheating and Plagiarism sections of the Virginia Tech Honor Code.

  5. Copy the relevant prompt you want to use (Upload, Paste, or Link) from the Copilot Prompt to Analyze Your User Documentation and paste it into the question area on Copilot.
  6. Add the sample document you want to analyze using one of these options:
    • Upload: Click the Upload button in the Copilot question area, and upload the PDF of the user documentation.
    • Paste: Copy the user documentation, and then paste it below the prompt in the Copilot question area.
    • Link: Copy the link to the user documentation, and then paste it below the prompt in the Copilot question area.
  7. Click the Send button in Copilot and wait for the response. Here’s an example response to the Tools, Targets, and Timing section of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Office of Strategic Services, 1944).
  8. Click the Export button to and save your response as a PDF.
  9. Review the AI response to determine if you agree. Use the information to begin revising the user documentation. Remember that AI can make mistakes. There are also limitations to what AI can do. For example, it won’t notice if an image in the documentation has an issue (e.g., it’s blurry or skewed). Likewise AI may not identify places when images would improve the documentation.
  10. Answer the quiz questions below to let me know if this activity helped you with your assignment. I want to evaluate this use of AI before I use it again in this course or a future one.
  11. Submit your quiz.

How to Assess and Track Your Work

This activity is optional. There is no assessment attached.