Mini-Project 1: Composing an Instruction Set

In Welch’s “Poetry, Visual Design and the How-To Manual: Creativity and the Teaching of Technical Writing” she mentions a project she uses to help introduce students to Technical Writing:

“…I asked students to bring in Lego bricks to build something of their own design. They were asked to write down each step and then have someone try it out. I added that they had to take a digital photograph of each step as well…The students built and rebuilt their projects, composed their how-to texts, added pictures, and then posted them online. The next class was on ‘usability testing,’ which required a classmate to try out the instructions and then give the writer feedback. The sets of instructions were then posted with needed revisions.”

For our first mini-project we’re going to try for ourselves the project Welch sketches out in her article.

Try this:

• Take the initial Lego design you built and sketched an instruction set for and complicate the design by adding 5 - 10 pieces to it. Your design will now have a total of 15 - 20 pieces (no more, no less).

• Revise your initial instruction set so that it can be delivered via a digital file – PowerPoint, Word, PDF, HTML, etc. The delivery medium/fomat is up to you, but your instruction set must contain both images and words.

• Have someone in class attempt to use your instruction set to rebuild your design – conduct a “useability test” – and offer you feedback on the instruction set.

Timeline/Deadlines

Instruction sets DUE at the start of class on TH. We’ll do rebuilds and feedback in class that day.