A2: Interactive Instructional Guide and Peer Usability Test
Technical Writing by Tiffani Tijerina is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International
Technical Writing by Tiffani Tijerina is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International
This assignment challenges you to create an interactive instructional guide on a topic related to your career. Your goal is to teach your audience how to complete a task or understand a concept in an asynchronous online module that takes the user about one hour to complete. This project will hone your technical writing skills while also encouraging you to think critically about audience engagement and multimodal communication.
You will also conduct peer usability tests to evaluate the clarity, engagement, and effectiveness of your guide and use the feedback to make revisions.
Finally, you will have the option to openly license your final, revised interactive instructional guide and share it on a website I created to showcase student work.
Examples of this assignment from my previous institutions can be found on Open Instructional Designs.
Choose a task or concept that is directly related to your career field or area of study, that you already know well enough to teach, and that is small enough in scope that the user can complete the guide in about an hour (give or take).
Identify and define your target audience. Consider their prior knowledge, experience, and needs. Tailor your guide to align with the audience's expectations and abilities.
Technology: I recommend playing around with an instructional design tool. The big ones are Articulate and Captivate, but those are both expensive and a bit overly complicated for this kind of course. There is a free tool called Genially that does very similar stuff, but in a much easier way for people who don't do instructional design for a living (such as you!). I recommend playing around with that just to get a feel for these types of tools. That said, it is not required that you use Genially. You can also use any web development tool, such as Google Sites, Canva, etc. I've also seen students use Figma for a similar assignment, if you have access to that. As with everything else in this class, please do not purchase a subscription to something you don't already have. I much prefer you to explore free tools than waste money on a tool you might not use beyond this class. If you're not sure what to use for your topic, feel free to email me or schedule a meeting to chat about it.
Your guide should include:
Step-by-step instructions with clear and concise language.
Interactive elements that actively engage the audience (e.g. clickable links, activities, or multimedia elements).
A multimodal approach using all five modes of communication:
Written: textual content such as steps, descriptions, or tips.
Oral: recorded audio, video, or voiceover components.
Visual: diagrams, charts, images, or videos.
Electronic: digital tools like hyperlinks, embedded media, or interactive features.
Nonverbal: layout, design, gestures (if applicable), or other elements that influence how your audience interprets the material.
An assessment activity to measure audience understanding or task completion. This could be a quiz, checklist, or practical exercise.
Part 1 Submission
Post your guide to the discussion board so that your classmates can review it.
Include a paragraph that provides your peers with a description of how you incorporated and balanced the different modes of multimodal communication and tailored your guide to meet the needs of your audience.
Include instructions on how to navigate your guide and feedback questions to evaluate clarity of instructions, engagement and interactivity, effectiveness of the multimodal elements, ease of completing the assessment activity, and suggestions for improvement.
Share your guide to this discussion board for your classmates to review.
Provide your peers with instructions in your post on how to navigate your guide and feedback questions to evaluate clarity of instructions, engagement and interactivity, effectiveness of the multimodal elements, ease of completing the assessment activity, and suggestions for improvement.
Choose two of your classmates' guides to test. Make sure that you choose two who have not yet had two tests. If the person has already had two responses, move on to someone else or come back another day before the deadline to see if there are any new posts. If you come back with less than two days to the deadline for part 2 and there are no posts with less than two responses, go ahead and choose from what is available.
Interact with their guides, taking notes on any challenges, confusion, or questions you encounter. Provide your notes in response to their original posts and include responses to their feedback questions.
Analyze the feedback and notes from your classmates.
Revise your instructional guide to address the usability issues identified. You don't have to post/submit your revision to the discussion board, but you're welcome to.
In one of our modules this semester, you will spend some time reading about copyright and open licensing of student-created content. After you are comfortable with your understanding of that information and your options, I want you to consider whether you want to openly share your interactive instructional guide under a Creative Commons license. This is an optional part of the assignment and will not affect completion.
Work will be published on a website tentatively titled "Open Instructional Designs." If you choose to openly license your work and share it, complete the following steps by the end of the semester.
Review your feedback from the usability test and revise your work as needed.
Review Creative Commons licensing options and select the license you want to apply to your work.
Add the license to the front page of your interactive instructional guide.
Add your name to the front page of your interactive instructional guide (if desired).
Complete the linked Google Form for submission.