During today’s class, exchange your instruction manual (printed or online) with one other person in class for a round of user experience (UX) testing.

Carefully read over the instruction or training manual that you receive.

Write a memo addressed to the designer of the manual that is at least 500 words long.

Your memo should include one paragraph responding to these:

• Summarize what the manual attempts to do in your own words.
• What works well in the instruction manual? Each statement should be followed by “because” and reasons why.
• What does not work well? Each statement should be followed by “because” and reasons why.
• What suggestions can you give the author of the manual to help them complete the assignment and improve it for a good grade?

Email your memo in Word docx format to the author of the manual and carbon copy (cc) Professor Ellis on that email (jellis@citytech.cuny.edu).

You may quote some material from the manual in your memo, but excessive quoting should not be used as a strategy to avoid writing 500 words of your own responses.

Take the feedback offered in the memo to revise your draft manual for the final deliverable due at the beginning of our next class on November 3.

Final revision checklist:

• Have you met all of the assignment details on this post?
• Are any screenshots, images, or diagrams of your own making?
• Have you asked someone to proofread another draft?
• Have you read your final draft aloud and made appropriate corrections?
• Are all citations documented and quoted parenthetically cited using APA?
• Have you used the APA Style Manual for your citations?

You should have your general list of instructions with you in class today.

Now, considering the balance of showing and telling. I want you to write a memo that states your plan of action to create your instruction manual.

Its introduction should state what exactly–use precise language–you are creating instructions to do.

In the next part, explain how you plan to instruct/guide your reader to accomplishing the task or learning a procedure. Will you use a list of instructions, a diagram, screenshots, photos, text boxes, appendix, etc.? For each of these things, you will want to say how you will use each element to support your audience.

Finally, write a short section that lays out your plan for what order you plan to complete your instruction manual. Will you test your written instructions that you brought to class today? After finalizing your written instructions, will you take screenshots or photos of each step? Will you add a layer of contextual information for your manual–in text boxes or an appendix?

You have 45 minutes to write this and send to me via email as a DOCX or PDF file–no invitations to edit on Google Docs, please!

For our next class: Bring one printed draft of your instruction/training manual. Focus on your instructions and visual aids (diagrams, photos, screenshots). We will use these during the first part of class to do UX testing. If the object of your manual is unavailable in our classroom, we will pair off and have you walk through the document with a peer. If you can arrange for the object to be in class, please feel free to do so, because this would of course make for a stronger UX test. The remainder of time in our next class will be on the other elements of the instruction manual (layout, TOC, introduction, contextual info and in-text definitions, glossary, citations). The project will be due in its final form on November 3.

Individually, you will write a 1500-2000-word instructional or training manual that demonstrates: 1. ability to explain a task/process in clear, concise language. 2. selection and definition of appropriate terminology and concepts. 3. awareness of the intended user/audience. 4. knowledge of instructional manual format. All diagrams, illustrations, or photos must be created by the student and integrated into his or her manual. Any outside sources cited should be documented according to APA format.

Instructional or Training Manual

• For our purposes, we will say instructional manuals are external facing, meaning they are meant for end users, customers, or clients.
• Training manuals are internal facing documents, meaning they are meant for employees, contractors, and colleagues.
• You choose your audience (internal or external).
• Its word count should be 1500-2000 words.
• Combine words with pictures, illustrations (drawings), and/or screenshots. Any images that you use must be created by you or taken by you.
• Clearly define the purpose of your manual. What does it teach? What does it help a person do? What task or tasks does it help someone complete in a straightforward and easy manner?
• Telling versus showing. Always aim for showing, but provide the telling as context, clarification, and additional information.
• Use the body of your document for writing, steps, etc. Don’t be afraid to include text boxes and end notes.
• Provide a cover sheet, table of contents, introduction/purpose, and glossary of important terms. It can be as few or as many pages as needed.
• Be consistent with your explanations and learn from similar kinds of manuals about what terms you should be using to explain how to do something (e.g., tapping, pressing, clicking, holding, dragging, typing, etc.).

Let’s look at some examples (use Google, the terms below, and “filetype:pdf” modifier).

• PDAC Guidelines and Steps (telling)
• IKEA Billy Bookcase (showing)
• Training Express’ Windows 98 Level I Training (telling and showing)
• QUE’s Learn Windows 7 (telling and showing)
• ASRock Z97 Anniversary Motherboard Manual (telling and showing)
• Amazon Web Services’ Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Windows Instances (telling and showing)

Find your own examples for ideas and inspiration. The reading for this section of the class has to do with your own research into what instruction manuals look like.

Think about what you know enough about that you can teach it to someone else and it is something that you want to include in your professional portfolio.

Of course, choose a task or process that you have realistic access to the hardware, software, etc. that you will need for creating your instruction manual.

• During class (or if you were absent, ASAP): email me a memo with three manuals, links, and description of good/bad qualities of each.
• Before our next class: create a new document and write the list of procedures that you plan to elaborate on in your manual.
• New due date for the project–one additional week to work on it: November 3.