1. TC 310 The Computer in Technical Communication
Dr. Jennifer Turns
Week 3, Day 2 (4/16)

2. Day 6 What we’ll do… By the end of class, students should be able to:
Use the editing functionality available in Microsoft Word
Describe some characteristics of students in the class
Discuss how knowing about design and their own design process is valuable to them as TC professionals
Conduct website analysis leading toward development of a site map
What we’ll do…
Discuss grading of assignment 2
Debrief from assignment 3
Discuss assignment 4
Introduce/explore Visio

3. Editing Tools - Word Locating the functionality
Menu
Toolbar
Context sensitive options
Phase 1: Making Changes
Turn on track changes
Exploring what changes are showing
Make changes to the text
Insert comments
Phase 2: Accepting/Rejecting Changes
How could I have the students actually do a simulated exercise..
What to have them edit
Maybe the cover letter – 2 grammar edits, suggest some sentence rewordings, and provide the letter writer with some specific feedback.
Design rationale
Learning reflection
Instructions to the students about something
Some text providing instructions… maybe a tutorial?
Maybe an of some sort.
How to get the files transferred between the students – they could the files to each other.
Maybe have them work in pairs, and do the exercise twice
One edits, the other processes, then the other edits and the first processes
Process
Editing - have them edit something
Have them accept/reject edits

4. Editing Tools - Exercise
Step 1 – Create editing opportunity
Identify a design rationale for feedback
Create a word document with the rationale
Step 2 – Offer editing services to a peer
Switch computers with someone, and edit their document (some tracked changes, some comments)
Step 3 – Address editing comments you received
Return to your own document
Review changes – decide to accept or reject.

5. Survey Results – Meet your Peers
Why did you choose TC as your major?
Opportunity to integrate technology and writing (4)
Opportunity to integrate writing & prof envts (2)
Computers without programming (3)
Help people use technology (1) ..
Other themes in choosing TC as the major..
“I sort of fell into the TC program… but a great fit thus far”
“TC allows me to use my practical and my creative side.”
“When I found out about the major…”
“For some bizarre reason, the idea of combining my interest in books and computers never occurred to me…”

6. Survey Results – Meet your Peers
Tell me about your professional interests…
User interface design
Online help / product manuals / documentation
Usability testing
PR work for technology company

7. Survey Results – Meet your Peers
I love progressive and neo-classical metal, which continues the tradition of virtuosity that Niccolo Paganini established
I am confident that just when you think you’ve mastered something, it opens a new door for you…
I am from California where it is warm and sunny right now
I am interested in Japanese language, culture, and martial arts.
I like snowboarding and reading fiction.

8. Survey Results – Meet your Peers
I was supposed to be at UW last year, but I Ws called to active duty in the Naval Reserve for a year, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
I have a dirtbike that I enjoy riding.
I work 40 hours a week for a health care company.
I’m a big fan of anime and am studying Japanese so I can enjoy it without subtitles.
My sense of humor – I have noticed that even in the greyest hours, it tends to bubble up. In life, sometimes, one either laughs or cries, I have chosen the former.

9. Learning Software Tools
Strategies mentioned
Using it / Experiment hands on / Playing around
Trial and error
Online help function
People to consult
Drawing on explicit knowledge (e.g., knowledge about graphics)
Needing a project to motivate learning
Explore software
Interactive tutorials

10. Learning Software Tools
Themes mentioned
Success and limits to success
Playing around vs. having a full problem
Playing around vs. getting the big picture
Role of manuals/other people / help system
Role of a task and level of task complexity

11. Your last design experience
What was designed
Document (6)
Website (2)
Flowerbed (1)
Generic (1)
Elements of process
Audience (3)
Alternatives/ brainstorming (3)
Criteria/rqmts (2)
Iterations and drafts (3)
Experimenting with available tools (2)

12. Thinking about Design
In technical fields, designers achieve goals by making decisions among alternatives using the best available knowledge.

13. Design in TC, Engineering, Arts
How are they different?
TC is between engineering and art
The three are not that different
Additional themes mentioned
Major consideration for TC is audience
Necessity of goal/purpose (no for arts)
Other Points
Need to be careful about assumptions made about other disciplines.

14. Design (continued)
In technical fields, designers achieve goals by making decisions among alternatives using the best available knowledge.
Field
Goals
Alternatives
Knowledge
Civil Engineering
Stability
Reliability
Structures
Materials
Physics
Best Practice
Experience
Industrial Engineering
Efficiency
Safety
Different plant layouts
Number of operators
Which machines
Operations Research
Human Factors
Engineering Psychology
Technical Communication ..

15. Design in TC
What types of goals do technical communicators typically strive toward?
Where do technical communicators go for the type of knowledge that can inform their decisions among alternatives?
What are alternatives/choices in TC?
What are alternatives/choices in PowerPoint?
Alternatives (specific to Presentations and PowerPoint)
Colors
Slide layouts
Themes
Language
Goals
Persuasiveness – comprehensiveness, completeness
Usability – visibility, simplicity
Audience appropriateness – tone
Professional – language is correct, consistency
Knowledge
Theory – reader response theory, communication theory
Research -
Best practice – defacto standards
Experience – experts intuition

16. Describing Designed Artifacts
Dimensions of descriptions
Overall appearance
Graphic design – colors, use of images
Navigation – inverted L, hierarchical structure, spotlights
Content – headlines, tone …
Challenge of separating description from evaluation
Has eight primary nodes
Fairly easy to navigate
A streamlined intuitive interface

17. Site Analysis - Sitemap Draft 1
Terminology
Site architecture, information architecture, navigation, nav bar, nav column, information design
Your task
Select three pages of the website as your focus (the main page and 2 second level pages)
Analyze these pages in order to understand the options available to the user on each page, and how the user can move between the pages.
Develop a diagram to show these options (i.e., pages and connections among pages).
Discussion
Is everything included? Correct?
How to take next step if diagrams are for users?
There is a lot of stuff going on on web pages. As we have already seen from the survey results, websites can be described from a content perspective, a graphical design perspective, and a navigation perspective. For example, Nielsen focuses on the issue of screen real estate and how effectively it is used.
Working on a sitemap is about ignoring much of these website aspects (I.e., the quality of the content, the graphic design, etc.) and focusing specifically on how users move among pages. Webpage navigation provide a window into the connections among pages that are available to the user (also known as the information structure). A sitemap aims to make those connections visual for the user.
Process:
Have you work on the sitemap
Discuss the drafts, use the discussion and drafts as an opportunity to
Introduce some vocabulary – specific structures
Identify themes, ways to improve the sitemaps
Your task – 25 minutes
Focus on three pages – the home page and 2 pages that can be reached from the home page
Analyze these pages in order to understand the options available to the user on each page, and how the user can move between the pages.
Develop a diagram to show these options (i.e., pages and connections among pages).
Discussion (20 minutes, 5 minutes per team, part of the time could be us as a group looking at the site)
I can make copies for everyone..
We can have them go over them map and then we can discuss
Information from Farkas book
p. 129: Major information structures
p : website/website hierarchy pair
p : two kinds of hierarchies
p. 158: Special purpose links
p : Shortcut spotlight, duplicate spotlight
p. 162: Designer classification of links,