Assignments

Planning Emails:

Planning emails: All major assignments will begin with a Planning Email written to me in correct, effective, professional style. Planning Emails are graded; they cannot be revised or made up due to absences, unless the absence is excused per CityTech absences policy. Planning Emails are written to me in correct, effective, professional style. Planning Emails are graded; This is where you tell me how you plan on completing the assignment, whether that includes conducting research, downloading needed software, seeking help from the career center, etc.). You can include anything in the planning email that you “plan” to do, whether you actually end up doing it or not. The point is that you have a plan.

Assignment One: Job Application Materials

Job Application Materials: Your job application materials will consist of the following elements: Research into the nature of the job market, using such sources as book, article, websites, campus resources, and interviews; Customizable cover letter in which you emphasize a strong fit between your qualifications and the reader’s needs; Customizable professional resume which presents your qualifications in a concise, positive, and persuasive way; A profile of the ideal candidate; Analysis of your qualifications; A recommendation from a class peer.

This assignment will be completed in stages.

The first part requires you to read chapters in our textbook to understand resumes and cover letters and business communications, and to view the PowerPoint on resumes.  You will then write a planning email (using the textbook format for email correspondence ) to write a planning email for the job application assignment.  

PLANNING EMAIL is due in Week 2 Blackboard Dropbox by 11:59 p.m., Thursday, September 2.

You will find a job advertisement that you will use to create your resume and cover letter, which is due in Week 3 Blackboard Dropbox by Sunday, September 12 by 11:59 p.m.

Then you will take a look at the advertisement and consider who is the ideal candidate.  Who do you think is the ultimate target of the position?  What kinds of skills or experiences do they have?  What level of education?  Who would ultimately be a good candidate for the position?  Describe this person.  This is the Ideal Candidate Analysis.

Then, analyze your qualifications.  What skills or experiences do you have (or lack)?  What level of education do you have that is beneficial (or not) for the position?  What strengths or weaknesses do you have regarding the position?  Or what could you bring to the job that another candidate would not? Take a good hard look at your skills.  This is the Analysis of Your Qualifications.

This is due AS ONE DOCUMENT in Week 7 Blackboard Dropbox by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, October 10.

Your JOB APPLICATION PACKET IS DUE in Week 8 Blackboard Dropbox by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, October 17.

Lastly, I will send you a peer’s application materials on to complete the recommendation letter. Recommendation letter due in Week 9 Blackboard Dropbox by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, October 24.

This is the process for completing this assignment. 

Assignment Two: Instructions

A set of instructions for a task such as using the web to register for courses, writing an evaluation portfolio, or operating a machine. No recipes!

This assignment will be completed in stages.  

You will begin by finding an example on the Internet to help familiarize you with the idea of instructions.  You will analyze your example according to what you have learned about instructions.

Afterwards, you will write a PLANNING EMAIL to me due in Week 12 Blackboard Dropbox by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 14. Again, this planning email do two things: 1). It will discuss the instructional manual you had to review during the week and give me your evaluation of it; 2). It will give your initial thoughts about how you plan to go about completing your manual, whether that means doing more research to come up with a topic (which could include consulting with friends and family on a specific topic), or even trying out a specific topic to see if you can actually explain it to an audience.  You can also use the deadlines in the course schedule for completed work as a guideline for when you can expect to have certain things completed regarding the assignment.  Make sure you tell me your specific topic in this email!

You will also watch youtube videos and a PowerPoint of how to create instructions as well as read a chapter on instructions and visuals. 

You will begin to think about your audience.  Who is the audience for your instructions?  What’s their level of education?  What’s their skill level?  What kind of experience do they have?  What’s their knowledge base? Who’s the kind of person who would use these instructions? Gender? Race? Socioeconomic level?  These are some of the questions you will have to consider when you analyze your audience. An Audience Analysis is due by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 21 in Week 13 Blackboard Dropbox. For more information on the Audience Analysis, click here.

You will work on sections of your instructions and, eventually, write a progress report and perform a usability test.  But for now, concentrate on the actual instructions.

The instructional manual will be due after completion of the usability testing on 11:59 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 15. Check your manual against this checklist before submitting.

Assignment Three: Usability Test Report

Usability Test Report: A report that demonstrates student’s ability to conduct a scientific test of their own instructional manual.

You will begin this assignment with your draft instructional manual.

After reading several web links on usability testing and watching a video, you will begin to think about how you plan on completing this task. PLANNING EMAIL is due in Week 15 Blackboard Dropbox by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 5. The planning email for this assignment should include the following:

1. Who will you conduct usability testing on?
2. When will you conduct the usability?

You need to consider how you will begin the process of conducting usability testing, with specific consideration of how you will complete the following parts:

First, find someone (a friend, roommate, relative, etc.) who has never seen or used your manual before. Ask this person to complete the tasks while you observe their activities; you can ask them to complete a specific task if you want, or just let them do whatever they want.  YOU MUST NOT AID IN THE COMPLETION OF THE TASK.  Instead, you will just observe and take notes.  This can be done by ZOOM or in person.

Watch what happens as they complete the tasks. Try to figure out what they do, what they want to do, and how the two match up. Pay particular attention to what happens when things go wrong. Remember also to look for what they didn’t do, but that you might have expected they would do. 

You can find the report template here or below:

Write a report covering the following points, in this order, using subheadings to separate each point:

1. Briefly — and anonymously! — describe your user tester, their technical expertise of the topic, and their familiarity with this manual in particular.
2. Describe your user’s actions… What did you observe? What did they do that you found unexpected? What problems did they as a novice user encounter that you, as an expert user, would not have encountered?
3. Focusing on the difference between expert and novice users, discuss how the manual helped or hindered the user in their activities from a user-centered design perspective, and explain how the manual might better support novice users. Where appropriate, include embedded links to appropriate pages so that we can see the causes of the difficulties you observed.
4. Describe how you would make changes to the instructional manual based on your observation of the user.  What things would you change?  What things would remain the same?

USABILITY REPORT due by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 12.

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