Reading Response #6

Being able to communicate well is essential in technical writing. Ornatowski argues that writers who can’t effectively communicate to others could perhaps end their careers—it’s that important! Writing is vital to pretty much every type of organization on the planet—it allows people to talk with one another, get ideas across, and everything in between. Even if only a handful of people in a particular organization do not know how to write and communicate with others, there are going to be problems.

Similarly, ethics play an extremely important role in communicating in technical writing. It can be hard finding a balance between giving information to people (clients, bosses, etc) that is practical, but is also ethical in that it carries the proper warnings, alerts, and whatever else might be needed to ensure that these people can carry out the practical aspect of the technical writing while at the same time staying safe and adhering to those safety rules.

This fits into project three because we’re producing A3 charts, white papers, and quad charts. All of these are means of communicating with people, each with its set of advantages and disadvantages, depending on the project. For an example to bring to class, I printed off a template for an A3 chart that’s divided into several different sections. These include things like “Theme”, “Problem Situation”, “Target/Goal”, “Cause Analysis”, “Countermeasures”, and “Implementation”. All of these categories are important, and at the same time allow the user to communicate effectively with the people who will be reading the A3 chart. Since an A3 chart is divided up into these different sections on one page, it’s easier to see warnings, potential problems, etc, than if the writer was using a white paper or a quad chart to convey the messages.

Reading Response #5

What did I learn from usability testing, beyond how to make a grilled cheese with an iron? Well, I learned that it’s extremely helpful! By doing usability testing, it becomes much easier to iron out (no pun intended) any kinks in your instructions. By sitting with someone and watching them while they run through your manual, you can see where things go wrong or have the potential to go wrong.

Because we weren’t doing anything particularly dangerous in class, there wasn’t really any chance that things could go drastically wrong, but when applying usability testing in the real world, it becomes extremely important to write instructions that are clear and simple to use. If you’re trying to fix, say, some kind of farm equipment, especially anything with blades, there’s a real potential for serious injury.

Or, in another example, if you’re writing instructions for children, it might be necessary to write instructions that are oversimplified. Because adults can understand something doesn’t mean children necessarily will. If it’s a recipe that involves baking or something that needs a little more care to be done, then the audience (children) really need to be kept in mind. Warnings also become significant in this case, if knives or ovens or any number of kitchen tools come into play—adult supervision or help becomes part of those instructions, because, again, injuries could occur.

I also learned that pictures go a long way in helping to detail how to put something together. They’re not always needed, but they do come in handy when putting together a lengthier project or if something’s a little more difficult. This way, you can check your work against someone else’s and determine whether or not you’re doing it right.

Reading Response #4

In terms of writing for instructions as opposed to a brochure, the language needs to be clearer. There need to be warnings, precautions, etc, that basically protect the writer of the instructions in the case of injury on the part of the person carrying out the instructions. Instructions also need to be accurate. All technical writing needs to be precise, but instructions all the more so, especially if they detail something that could be potentially dangerous.

The manuals that people brought into class were interesting, especially the one for wearing the bike helmet properly. All that information, just for a helmet! It’s funny, in a way, the lengths to which writers need to go in order to ensure they won’t be sued.

Instructions also need to be written with design in mind. A lot of manuals—in particular those from IKEA—seem to consist of nothing but pictures. At least, this seems to be the case to me. When I moved into my apartment a few weeks ago, all the furniture I brought with me needed to be put together, and all the instructions were written in diagrams. If there were words, they were only to explain what part was what or what number to call if I was having problems putting something together. They weren’t always clear, and they were sometimes hard to understand. If instructions aren’t designed with flow and clarity in mind, then no one will be able to understand them.

On another note, it’s interesting watching Helvetica from a technical writing standpoint. I first watched part of the film in a graphic design history class, and I loved it. Now, though, applying it to technical writing makes it even better. We studied type a little bit as a part of graphic design history, and it was probably one of my favorite topics. It’s amazing the difference a typeface can make on a project—there were a few times when it was the difference between a great project and a mediocre one. Typeface has an influence on instructions in particular because being able to easily read what you’re supposed to do is as important as being able to understand the diagrams that accompany the words.

Reading Reponse #3

After working on the brochure project this week, I’ve learned a little more about visual design. Because I’ve taken a few graphic design classes, a lot of what I’ve already learned goes along with the newer things that cropped up this week.

 I knew about typeface vs. font, the importance of color, and other visual elements of design. I’ve done dozens of projects that focus on these particular aspects, but the interesting part this week was applying those concepts to a more technical design. I’ve done websites, DVD covers, maps, and even food containers, but those have always been geared more towards graphic design. A brochure can easily be considered graphic design as much as technical design, but for the purpose of this class I know that it was to help us familiarize ourselves with what technical communication is, and how design can sort of insinuate itself into it.

 Because so far, it seems to me that technical communication and graphic design can often be one and the same. Visual design is as important as writing when it comes to technical communication—if you don’t have an eye-catching design, it’s pretty likely that no one’s going to want to look at your work. It needs to be well-done, appropriate to your topic, and clearly geared towards a specific audience. The same goes for writing: if an instruction manual, for example, is written all over the place with no rhyme or reason (or if it doesn’t have pictures to illustrate), it can be confusing and off-putting. No one wants to look at it, and, well, that could spell disaster for your furniture.

I feel like I’m already getting a lot out of this class because now I’m going to start looking at these projects with a technical eye as well as a graphic one. In graphic design, we always had to do research before we started a project to make sure we knew what we were doing, and we had to write up a fake memo each project that explained who our audience was and how we were going to market our product. Beyond that, time was usually spent making things look as graphically eye-catching as possible. Writing was never quite as big a deal. In this class, it’s easy to see that the writing is at least as important, if not more, than the graphic elements.