Megan Von Bergen Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description Designed as a major assignment in a general education professional writing course, the Instructions & Accessibility/User Analysis (IAUA) assignment asks students to create a multimodal set of instructions for a simple task, while making design choices that improve accessibility. Students also conduct a user analysis of […]
Cathryn Molloy Volume 6 Chapter Description In this chapter, you’ll learn basic considerations for accessible documentation projects. The chapter will allow you to begin to approach documentationprojects with fundamental accessibly in mind. In order to do so, we’ll cover topics such as: considering colorblindness, considering dyslexia, and other conditions that alter visual abilities, creating documents
Candice Lanius and Ryan Weber Volume 6 Chapter Description User-centered design can help avoid assumptions about what audiences need and help avoid creating products, such as documents, websites, infographics, etc., that individuals cannot use. By placing the user of a product at the center of the design process, user-centered design makes the processes of design,
“Not So Fast”: Centering Your Users to Design the Right Solution Read More »
Joanna Schreiber Volume 6 Chapter Description UX research is central to technical writing work. The three phases of user experience (UX) research—background, primary, and usability testing—presented in this chapter are intended to help you see research as both a fundamental and ongoing part of technical writing. This chapter provides a foundation for building your knowledge
Beyond Audience Analysis: Three Stages of User Experience Research for Technical Writers Read More »
Felicia Chong and Tammy Rice-Bailey Volume 6 Chapter Description This chapter provides an introduction to core concepts, tools, and processes associated with usability and usability testing. The objective of the chapter is to help you better understand what is involved in these activities. Throughout this essay, we explain the importance of understanding users and provide
Introduction to Usability and Usability Testing Read More »
Kelly Scarff Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The Problem Statement is a collaborative assignment that helps students approach writing as a problem-solving tool, incorporate discipline-specific language in their writing, and identify safety or accessibility issues in their community. In teams of three, students identify a safety or accessibility problem on campus or in the
Safety & Accessibility Problem Statement Read More »
Arielle Bernstein & Chelsea L. Horne Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Increasingly, online publishers and distributors of information – news sites, popular magazines, professional blogs – have implemented paywalls to limit the number of articles to which the public has free access. This has traditionally been true for scholarly sources and databases, and prompts
Playing with Paywalls: Information Literacy in Theory and Practice Read More »
Kefaya Diab Volume 5 Chapter Description Students in writing courses often circulate inaccessible and hard-to-read digital documents to their teachers and peers, thus disabling the readers. This essay is inspired by my experience with my students and the activities I design to help them notice the importance of composing readable and accessible digital texts. The
Enabling the Reader Read More »
Keri Epps Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description As a writing instructor dedicated to researching and teaching rhetorical genres, I often struggle with how to facilitate students’ learning of what makes a genre, how it circulates, and who it matters to. In short, designing scaffolded assignments around “genre” has seemed difficult in writing courses at
How to Write a _____ Like a _____ Read More »
Heather Shearer Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description Many composition instructors ask students to read drafts aloud during writing workshops because doing so helps writers identify logical gaps, stylistic mishaps, or localized errors they overlook when reading drafts silently. To amplify the writerly knowledge gained from reading drafts aloud, we can extend the read-aloud practice
“Lend Ears!”: Creating Audio Recordings of Final Drafts to Develop Rhetorical Awareness Read More »
