USER GUIDE ASSIGNMENT

DRAFT DUE: (in class, three copies): Thu., Sep. 21 / Fri., Sep. 22

FINAL DUE: (Two (2) pm, one copy): Thur., Oct. 5 / Fri., Oct. 6 <--- NOTE CHANGES

Pick a software package, such as the wordprocessing, spreadsheet, or drawing program you use most frequently (avoid e-mail). Then plan and write a brief tutorial-style guide to its use. Like many programs, the one you choose may have voluminous documentation including a user-considerate introduction. Do not plagiarize; instead explain this software using your own words and graphics to a new user.

It is crucial that you understand what a tutorial-style guide is. A tutorial is a project-oriented and not a feature or task-oriented document. It walks the reader through a single coherent exercise chosen to illustrate a subset of the features you, as author, have decided to cover.

As a first step, you are to create a "blueprint" for your user's guide. In this case, this is to cover

• purpose of the user tutorial document
• intended audience to include your expectations of their general background, computer sophistication, and their attitude/motivation
• a brief description of the scenario into which you will project your reader, including the particular exercise or project you will have the reader accomplish as he/she reads your tutorial guide and follows the steps prescribed
• a list of the features to be dovered
• outline or table of contents

(Some of the above also belongs in the guide itself.) Include the name, version and source of the actual software you have chosen and make all of this part of a memo to your instructor which accompanies the guide itself, in both the draft and final versions.

This assignment has been set as a tutorial-style user's guide to avoid the necessity of exhaustively describing all features of the software chosen. Thus the completed document must not exceed 10 pages, including graphics. At issue is how well you serve the new user of the software in his/her effort to master the basics.

Important: You should assume that your reader is at a computer when reading the guide. Remember that frequent snapshots of the state of the activity (usually a screen image or portion thereof) will reinforce reader confidence and can save hundreds or thousands of words of text. (Make certain that your text supports all of the graphics you use by referring to them in the context of the walkthrough.)

Think through the exercise you will put your reader through to make sure that it can be completed in detail by the reader in a single session. (If you want two readers to partner in using your tutorial, be even more careful.)