Technical Writing Reflection

When you think about your ‘users’ or audience when writing you have to think about accessibility, their attention, what visually appeals to them and will translate well or work well with your subject. Two examples of considerations I made when thinking about my audiences in my writing this semester are when I made the instruction set and included, braille, Spanish and Chinese translations, and when I simplified the choose your own apocalypse game so that it took less time to complete in order for the player to visit multiple booths.

One of the revisions I made in my projects this semester was to simplify points on my instruction set to be less wordy so it was quickly scannable, and when I had to select from all the information I had in the white paper to only include what was pertinent to the final display in the side info graphic I created. Not everything always makes the cut when writing concisely. Because of these changes the instruction set fit all onto one page and only relayed important information needed by the general public which likely would make it easier to follow. In the changes made from the white paper to the info graphic it allowed people passing our display to read headings first and decided what information mattered to them to read further.

Being a person who never knows what is to much writing in all types from school papers to text messages, I think feel that the lessons about breaking up writing, only including what is important, and making it so visuals also help with flow, will translate into other classes and future job settings. For example when writing a resume you have to stay to one page, two at the most. By learning these skills in this classroom I will be able to do that with greater ease. Another example is when thinking of how to organize information graphically; started with why you are presenting the information, give the facts which sets up the proposal, give the proposal, and conclude by summarizing the entirety of the piece. This skill can be used in my different writing settings.

I selected 2 projects to include in my eportfolio because I felt they were the strongest in the work we did in this class. Both are group projects but if I had to comment on the strengths they display in my own personal writing I would say that both take into consideration audience far more than my previous written works. It was my idea to include the bubble map in the instruction set in order for people to more easily follow the line of communications rather than simply explaining via blocks of text. It was also my idea from the activity our group presented at the zombie expo as well as the layout of the display to include the side info graphics. We received multiple compliments on both projects. The improvements in my writing, again, was how much was trimmed in each piece. The weaknesses they still illustrate is how much I relied on Natalia's Photoshop and Illustrator program usage. I am not familiar with either, although I used my skills in Indesign to work out my info graphic and help Chris do his so that they synced up. Even though the use of those programs is not exclusive to being a good writer, I still feel by knowing various platforms and programs, visual writing can often be improved.