Document Development Exposition: Instructions and Usability Memo

ENGL 2116

Explain in detail your document’s development from planning to finish, describing your
challenges, how you overcame them, and what you learned.

Planning
When planning this document, the group of four other people I was paired with were tasked with
conducting a usability test on a USGS mobile website designed to show ground water details for each
site in the US. After conducting the test we collected all users notes and found the main elements of
the web page that needed to be fixed. After stating what needed to be fixed we proceeded to look
over the original website to discuss any possible edits prior to making changes to the webpage.

First Draft (for peer editing)

Due to this being a group effort in the first place there was no peer edit for this assignment. Instead
all members of the group were able to collaborate and check the progress, grammar, and formatting
of the other members as the document was written. This team peer reviewing experience helped
because it allowed for multiple members to voice their opinion in the project.

Second Draft (for your packet)

For the first draft we decided that the order of sections of the website made very little sense. They
would ask you to maneuver to a menu option before describing where the menu was or what
options were in the menu. Due to this we reordered the webpage and then started writing the
memo describing all changes and why the team decided they improved the quality of the
instructions.

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

For the portfolio I went back and adjusted the document to match the comments I received. One of
the main changes I made were adding in icons where previously we either described the icon or used
a symbol to represent it instead of the actual icon. I did however choose to ignore a change that was
suggested. It was suggested that in the menu section of the instructions I draw arrows from the
description to the screenshot of the menu. After trying that I determined it made the page more
confusing as the arrows were not straight across to the image. To make this section slightly easier I
resized and moved the picture so that the descriptions were in line with the image, but had no
arrows.