Friday, October 9, 2009

Instructions

For this fun exercise, please peruse sample "instructions" posted online (there are many websites that specialize in how-to's or instructions). After looking at several, please choose one set of instructions that you would assess as unsatisfactory, for reasons of graphics, text, or a combination of both. Please be sure to think about the guidelines your book offers for effective instructions. Let these guide your assessment. Post a link and your assessment in your comment.

14 comments:

  1. http://artofmanliness.com/2009/09/29/how-to-use-a-hammer/

    This link explains how to use a hammer. For most of the page does a good job of using pictures and text to explain the different type of hammers. However, this set of instructions is not sufficient when it is explaining how to actually use the hammer. The actually how-to section is very hard to follow because there are no clear steps. The whole section is like one big sentence that could be misinterpreted.

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  2. http://www.ehow.com/how_5331119_clean-dirty-computer-fans.html

    In this article from ehow.com, a vast instructional website, a writer attempts to explain how to clean the fans in a desktop computer. Beside the obvious and distracting grammatical and spelling errors in the article, the author does not do a good job taking her audience through the intended process. She uses terms that only a tech-savvy audience would know (which doesn't make much sense, as a tech-savvy audience would probably already know how to perform the described task). Her audience is one that probably doesn't know much about computers and circuit boards, so a way the author could improve the instructions would be to provide links on all the technical terms that would take the reader to definitions and pictures of the components in the instructions. Finally, she needs to double-check her process for errors. One example of these errors that could lead to disaster is her technique of discharging static electricity: she simply says to "Touch a piece of bare metal often to remove any static electricity from your hand," however, if the piece of metal is not grounded (i.e. you're just holding the metal and it's not attached to anything), the static will not be properly discharged.

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  3. http://webpages.charter.net/yvonnechang/knots/BrocadeKnot.htm

    The link above leads to a set of instructions for making a brocade Chinese knot. The mixture of hand-drawn illustrations and photographs is somewhat confusing. Also, the instructions are ordered from top to bottom in rows, which is hard to follow. Since the all the words on the instructions are written in English, it is a safe assumption to make that a viewer of these instructions would first attempt to read them left to right, which wouldn’t make any sense in terms of following the pictures. There are almost no words used in these instructions and there appear to be large steps taken between each photograph, both of which make it almost impossible to track what happened between one photograph and the next.

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  4. http://www.faragestyle.com.au/images/TIE_knot_full_windsor.jpg

    This link explains how to tie a full windsor knot using only pictures. While the pictures look good and are in a clear and followable order I think that including text would make them much easier to follow. To understand what is happening without text it is necessary to study the differences between pictures because the arrows used to designate what to do are not easy to follow.

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  5. These instructions for building a bird house can be confusing and hard to follow. The instructions only have one picture with very small descriptions of each piece. The text refers to this picture, but the picture is not labeled. It also refers to a picture that does not exist. Many of the steps give vague information like "from a corner". One step says to make a perch, but does not specify where to glue it. Another sentence refers to a channel, where there are no obvious channels in the birdhouse.

    http://www.redbird.ie/newsite/blog/?p=52

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  6. http://www.wikihow.com/kiss

    This link explains how to properly kiss. This like is unsatisfactory because it generallizes everyone into one kissing category assuming everyone will kiss or will like being kissed the same way. Also, the images are not very helpful and don't help with understanding what the text is saying. There is also no saftey tips on this site incase something goes bad, or how to avoid bad situations when kissing. It doesn't address specific problems that, as every college student knows, can and will go wrong. The reader is not prepaired for the worst, so they assume that only the best can happen by following these instructions.

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  7. http://www.ehow.com/how_5508247_count-cards.html

    This explanation is about counting cards. First off, the entire instruction set has vocabulary and grammar errors. The introductory paragraph is the the exact same as the first half of step 1. Also, there are only three steps which is probably much too short for anyone to learn how to count cards. People write books on this but somehow this person believes he can do in three steps.

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  8. http://www.stashtea.com/swinstru.htm attempts to explain how make a sushi roll. These instructions fail to show the reader how to prepare the ingredients of the sushi roll before having to add them to the 'finished' product; i.e., how does one cut/prepare the fish and vegetables that are added into the roll? The pictures presented alongside the written instructions are not clear due to their coloring. The color scheme of white on white on black lines does not clearly show the separate ingredients during each stage.

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  9. http://www.ehow.com/how_2128486_eat-oysters-half-shell.html

    These instructions provide many of the preliminary procedures for eating oysters, but fail to address the act itself in much detail. The author uses technical vocabulary such as "gastronomes," which may confuse an uninitiated or illiterate audience. No pictures are provided.

    Although one might find these instructions useful for brushing up on oyster ettiquette, a person interested in successfully ingesting an oyster would come away from the site with little to show for it.

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  10. http://www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-camel

    These instructions attempt to teach the reader how to draw a camel. However, these instructions would be very difficult to follow, even with existing experience drawing camels.

    In place of an introductory paragraph, the author simply states that the instructions will help you draw a camel. The instructions then proceed to give the reader steps that seem to be missing information. One step simply says "Draw a circle, this will become a knee." It does not specify where to draw the circle, or the size of the circle. Including pictures with each step would help clarify the instructions.

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  11. http://hubpages.com/hub/How_to_Make_a_Cookie_Cake

    These are the instructions of how to make a cookie cake, but is very confusing when we go through it. It is not very well detailed for someone who doesn't have any experience or background with baking.The steps are not numbered which make it easier to skip a step.Instead, the steps are all included in a single paragraph which make it hard to read and follow.There are no pictures explaining or showing how it is done.

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  12. http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html
    The above link leads to instructions on how to fix one's sleep cycle if you run on abnormal one. through it explains what this means better than I can this set of instructions has a few flaws that make them hard to use. First the pictures used are obnoxiously large and distracts form the text. Additional it introduces the subject with a summery of the authors life story, surly there has to be a quicker way to introduce the topic.

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  13. http://www.ehow.com/how_1250_learn-rock-climb.html

    The article seems to assume that the only way to learn a physical skill is to watch people or read about it. Having learned how to climb, the best way to learn is to go climbing yourself. Having someone who knows how to give tips is extremely important and helpful but you cannot lean this until you go at it yourself.

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  14. http://www.kiki.org/origami/buck.html
    The link above is how to fold a dollar into a buck deer. The worded instructions are really confusing, but the pictures a little.

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