Author Archives: Jason W. Ellis

Week 8

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In the pre-Internet era, magazines were an important resource for computer hobbyists to obtain useful technical information. The August 1994 issue of PC Computing above was a treasure trove of DOS and Windows 3.1 computing information. My original copy was dogeared and contained copious notes in the margins.While there are still many computer magazines being published, most finding help, tips, and other technical information has shifted to the Internet and found through search tools like Google or through inquiries placed on social media (e.g., Reddit). That information, how it’s presented, and how it is found are all examples of technical communication.

For this week’s class:

  • Weekly Reading Report Exercise
  • Reminder About Google UX Researcher’s Talk Tonight
  • Let’s discuss your LinkedIn Profiles
    • Publish your work on CUNY Academicworks, and link to that work in the Projects section of your LinkedIn Profile.
  • Discuss this week’s readings
  • Perform Peer Review on last week’s deliverable
  • Use Feedback to begin writing Report deliverable
  • Review syllabus about next week’s readings and work

Another Extra Credit Opportunity: Google UX Researcher at City Tech, Thursday, 6:30pm

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The COMD Department is hosting Mike D’Andrea, Lead UX Researcher at Google this Thursday after our class. This is both a recommended opportunity to learn from a professional in a tangentially related field (UX or User Experience) and a great event to earn some extra credit in our class by attending and writing a 250-word memo about what you learn there. Details are below.

Dear City Tech Community,

Join the Department of Communication Design (COMD) this Thursday, October 20th at 6:30pm in Room 117 of the Pearl building for a lecture by Google UX researcher Mike D’Andrea.

Learn what User Experience research is and what it takes to become a researcher in this field. In his lecture, Mike will speak about his background, job role and responsibilities, and share some tips on starting and thriving in a UX research career.

Mike has been a UX researcher at Google for nearly a decade and has worked across several teams while there. 

The COMD department is very excited to be hosting him at the College!

Week 7

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The above outlining (left) and organizing (right, a lite form of information architecture) are not final deliverables, but doing the work that goes into them might help us create better and more effective technical communication deliverables. The outlining and brainstorming on the left led to an academic conference paper. The organizing on the left using a refrigerator, dry erase markers, index cards, and magnetic clips led to an academic conference program. Both were low-tech ways to organize and categorize ideas before formalizing them in a paper for public presentation or a printed program saying which presentations are grouped together and presented in a space at a given time.

For this week’s class:

  • Weekly Reading Report Exercise
  • Discuss this week’s readings
  • Introduce this week’s (and next’s) deliverable: Reports
  • My Professional Work, Our Sandbox Exercise
  • Perform Peer Review on last week’s deliverable
  • Begin working on this week’s deliverable for Reports
  • Review syllabus about next week’s readings and work.