- Time Required
- 10–12 hours, including reading time
Welcome to Week Five of the course. This week we will focus on usability and document design. The arrangement of text, images, charts, and other elements in your documents is just as important as the actual content of those elements.
Holidays & Events This Week
Here are the events coming up this week:
- Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from through October 15.
- The Fast of Gedaliah. a Jewish day of fasting, takes place from sunrise to sunset on Monday, September 18.
- Ganesh Chaturthi, a Hindu celebration, is Tuesday, September 19.
- Mabon, celebrated by Pagans, Wiccans, and Druids, celebrates the Autumnal Equinox. It usually lasts from September 21–24.
- Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish faith. It begins at sunset on Sunday, September 24, and ends at sunset on Monday, September 25.
If any of these events interferes with your work in the class, send me a message with Canvas Inbox and let me know how you need me to adjust your due dates.
Objectives for this Module
After completing this week’s activities, you address the following 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]
Activities to Complete
Due Dates
- All work is due by 11:59 PM on Friday, September 22.
- Grace Period:
- Ends at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, September 27 for your Check-in Survey.
- Ends at 11:59 PM on Friday, December 1 for the rest of the week’s work.
📚 To Read This Week
- Ch 9: Usability, from An Introduction to Technical Communication
- How to Test the Usability of Documents
- Comments on Usability Testing See notes or watch the video.
- Accessibility in Canvas Sites (PDF)
- Resource Module: Plain Language (reread/review)
- Resource Module: Document Design (reread/review)
- Managing Paragraph Lengths video (3m 20s), from LinkedIn Learning
📝 To Do This Week
- Continue work on the second Major Project, User Documentation Revision & Reflection Memo, which has a Target Due Date of Friday, September 29. Use these resources:
- User Documentation Revision & Memo Criteria
- User Documentation Revision & Memo Assignment
- User Documentation Revision & Reflection Memo Self-Check
- Scheduling note: September 29 is the first night of Sukkot. If you observe Sukkot, please shift your Target Due Date to a better day. I want you to be able to celebrate the holiday.
- Try out strategies from the course by submitting these activities:
💬 To Ask Questions (Optional)
- Optional ways to discuss class issues:
- Post public questions in the General Q&A Discussion in Canvas if it can be shared with the class.
- If you have a private question, send me a message with the Canvas Inbox.
- Ask a question or make a suggestion anonymously with the Anonymous Questions & Suggestions form.
- Post public questions in the General Q&A Discussion in Canvas if it can be shared with the class.
📓 To Check-In This Week
- Fill out the Week 5 Check-In Survey to let me know how you are doing in the course.