People, People, People!

This chapter touches on important aspects that most information technology gurus are already aware of. The students in our class that aren’t IT majors may not have the knowledge on what to concern themselves with when designing a web page. If I were majoring in journalism, for instance, the first thing I am going to be stressing over is the content in my article on the home page of my brand new web site. Maybe I’ll choose some interesting colors schemes, background design, and add some pictures. On the rare occasion, who will be viewing my web page will cross my mind once or twice but I’ll assume it is just the general public. However, I am not majoring in journalism or any other technology unrelated subject and am fully educated on what it takes to create a successful website. This chapter points out the basics in taking your projected audience into consideration before you even begin to plan your website’s construction.

First, find you major audiences, gather information on each of them, and then list their major characteristics. After writing their characteristics down in front of you, it should be fairly easy to recognize some sample questions, tasks, stories, and main purposes they may have involving your website. Now comes the most important part, creating personas including the personas’ goals and tasks with sample scenarios. Personas are made-up, example audience members covering all angles of your broad audiences’ perspectives. Some basic information to create a persona starts out listing their occupation, marital status, spouses’ occupation, if they have children, and where they live. The more in-depth and critical-to-focus-on attributes would include: the persona’s personal values/emotions, social and cultural environment they are surrounded by, demographics, and technological expertise or experience.

The Color Theory

This was certainly the most in-depth body of text describing colors I have ever read. I know for a fact that the importance of color, not just on web pages, but everywhere in life has extreme effects on mood, thoughts, and emotion. I remember reading a long time ago about the intense testing and experimental process that goes into deciding what colors to make street signs. It makes sense, of course, to find the most legible and noticeable color combination possible so that drivers are able to read signs as easily as possible no matter what variables may hinder under any situation. Something so emphasized on first impression and attention-grabbing as a web page must put more time into choosing its color schemes then the actual content on the page it seems. I already know that statement is not entirely true, but after reading this article I definitely second guessed the percentage of value color dominates in designing websites. Ecommerce web sites would obviously want to focus on the colors that make their customers most likely to spend their money right? Can you imagine the decisions an interior designer must go through when constructing their business’s page? It turns out, according to the article, that there is an entire psychology study based on color. Like I said, I always knew the emphasis on color, but never to this extent.

Chapter 21

Oral presentations are very important everywhere in life. Presenting yourself changes or emphasizes people’s views and judgments related to you. An oral presentation involves careful consideration during the actual presentation, but more importantly, before the actual presentation. The planning process for an oral presentation will give you a better structure for the presentation as a whole and let you feel more comfortable while presenting. You must analyze the audience and purpose of the presentation, organize the presentation logically, prepare for the presentation, use presentation software effectively, and deliver a confident, professional presentation all together. Most consider the actual delivery of an oral presentation is the most difficult hurdle. Whether anxiety takes effect on an individual or not, the delivery is what persuades the audience most. In my opinion, you could be giving a presentation on the most random, irrelevant, useless topic but prepare your heart out, give the most confident speech possible and persuade more than you’d expect. This chapter expresses all the different types of oral presentations and persuasive presentations are just one of the five talked about. However, I still stand by my idea that, if the presenter seems to truly believe in what he or she is presenting, the audience is that much more likely to feel the same.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 consists of ideas I've been thinking more and more about over the past year or so and especially now that I am graduating in less than a month. The job search is tedious but so important to me that I couldn't help but get entranced by every section in this chapter. It is titled, "Resumes and Other Employment Materials" but contains more than just that. The first sentence in the chapter emphasizes its utmost importance. Not only does it provide in-depth instruction on how to write resumes, cover letters, acceptance and refusal letters, but it also teaches you how to prepare for job interviews and assess your skills prior to searching for a job.

Personally, the second section of chapter 9 on "Researching the Job Market" was the most interesting. Even though I should be in the "going after a job" stage at the moment, I am still constantly researching the market and looking for trends. The section says to search within a reasonable range, don't just dive in, work step by step, and start by talking to job experts, librarians, friends and family. In my opinion, I can't see how a librarian would help very much but I have definitely been talking to my family, friends, and "Google" on a regular basis about the job market. Next, they say I should consult industry-specific resources. This is ground of most of my job search activity. My major is very specific, therefore, I search for very specific jobs. Finally, they say to look for specific job posting or send out unsolicited application letters. There is a something I haven't thought of; sending out my resume and/or application letters to job opportunities in bulk. I could do so and wait to hear back from them while simultaneously pursuing jobs elsewhere.

I've also, recently, began adding profiles for myself all over job search websites like CareerBuilder.com, LinkedIn.com, and Illinois State University's eRecruiting web page.

Chapter 17

There are solicited and unsolicited proposals, formal and informal. You must understand the different functions of planning, researching, and sales proposals. Proposals generally authorize a project, purchase a service or product, or support a specific plan for solving a problem. These are different forms, types, and ideas to write a proposal but every proposal has one thing in common: to persuade the audience to say "Yes, let's move ahead with this plan!"

Solicited proposals are often given out to numerous organizations as a request to perform a duty. Your proposal will have to compete with the other organizations' proposals to be accepted. If you work for a computer software engineering company and a potential client needs a program developed for organizing its T-shirt sales they will likely send the request for the proposal (RFP) out to several different companies. You better write a perfect proposal to fulfill the client's needs if you want them to choose your company for the project.

Unsolicited proposals are not issued by request. Like the example I gave above, your software company might want to send out several unsolicited proposals to real estate agencies suggesting that they use your brand new property tax software. Unsolicited proposals can be viewed as an alternative to "cold calling" or going door-to-door. When writing one you should capture the audience's attention and provide incentive to continue reading in order to consider your organization.

Definition of Technical Writing

Technical Communication, by definition, helps us interact with technology in our daily lives. The most common forms of technical communication come from the installation instructions for your brand new gadget, to the menu on an ATM, or a Google search for a “how-to” on the newest software you’ve just downloaded. During our everyday lives technical communication is common all over, even in the workplace. I would say more so than anywhere else. But that’s also my opinion. I think it is important to give examples on the subject because of its broad base. Some specialized questions and situations, quoted from the book, where technical communication is necessary include:

“A government research scientist must have accurate instructions about how to write a grant or how to perform a particular experiment”

“An engineer must have access to the correct specifications for designing a bridge or configuring a software application.”

“What are the technical limits to wind energy?”

These are just a few examples. It sounds to me like a lot of confusing scenarios boiled down to one thing. Whenever someone may need instruction or guidance for a task beyond their understanding involving technology, technical communication is needed. It could be the newest internet service provider’s security system or a setting on your washing machine at home.

Packet Review

Upon reviewing the other group members' packet I was assigned the persona section. The persona's name is Samantha Sanders and she is your typical 22 year-old, part-time working, full-time student at Illinois State University. The page describing this Samantha persona includes basic information like where Samantha lives, what year she is in school, how old she is, and where she works. There is a section that goes into more details about her roommates living habits as well as her own. This particular section also discusses her plans for post-graduation from ISU, what some of her hobbies are during her spare time, where her priorities stand, and what she likes to do on the weekends. The most important section describing the persona, in my opinion, lists Samantha's "Typical Web Tasks". These include Facebook and other social networks, accessing ISU's iCampus for checking email, blackboard, and keeping up with school news, shopping and bidding for merchandise, reading news, checking weather forecast, check bank statements, and research for school work.

If I were to create this persona of Samantha Sanders myself I wouldn't have done too much differently. A few suggestions I have would be to "chunk" or organize the sections on the page a bit differently, add a few headers to some of the sections, and verify that Samantha doesn't have any disabilities or speaks any other languages besides than English that may affect the way she uses technology (computers; internet). There is a section that talks about Samantha's Typical Web Tasks, but I may have gone into more specifications about her typical "computer skills" as well.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 expresses the how information should be structured for to the readers. Structuring includes outlining, chunking, sequencing, paragraphing, and clarifying headings. If you are like me, reading these sections covered in this chapter, you will have recognized all of them except for chunking. Chunking? To be honest, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard this term in relation to writing. Apparently, chunking is the act of breaking information down into discrete, digestible units, based on the readers’ needs and the document’s purpose. It is a sort of organizing technique that makes it easier on the readers to “connect the dots”. From my perspective, chunking seems to be another word for writing an outline. When writing your traditional five paragraph essay, the paper is first broken up into the five paragraphs, or chunks. There is an introduction, three body paragraphs describing three separate ideas, and then there is a conclusion. Within each of these sections, however, more sections are derived to further organize the chunk. It is noticeable that hard-copies of documents and web-based documents vary in their chunking technique. Web pages are often chunked down into the smallest sections possible because no one likes to read too much on a computer screen. Users would rather get to the point and move on by bouncing from link to link without having to read so much ongoing text. Documents, on the other hand, are expected to have longer sections and less chunking naturally because they are most often read in a sequential order instead of skipping around to various sections. Chunking seems to be an expression of a technical document’s hierarchy.

Chapter 4

Designing and delivering usable information to the user is an important part of technical communication and writing. You have to analyze the document’s audience, determine the document’s purpose, create a task analysis for the document, consider other related usability factors, develop an information plan for the document, and finally, write, test, and revise the document for usability.

Usability testing is important in more ways than one. Not only will usability make it harder for your audience to understand if it is not up to par, but it may drive the audience away from the point you are trying to get across. Usability in the business world is held to an even higher standard. If the product being sold (or the web page selling/advertising the product) isn’t user friendly, the business will ultimately lose their customer base and lose sales.

The content of the document cannot have any inaccuracies. You have to know your audience that the document is aimed at in order to make sure that the level of technicality involved isn’t over their heads. The document must stay organized otherwise it will be difficult to follow. If there are sections of the document that are out of order it won’t be easy for the audience to find or complete the task they need. The style of the document must be written with enough variety to keep the users’ attention but not too much to become too wordy or complex for the user. Layouts and visuals help convey the point you are trying to make but if you aren’t careful they could make the document worse or confusing for the reader. If there are any excessively long paragraphs, lists or steps, a visual aid can often take its place.