If you build it, will it work?

The first major assignment in first year that specifically related to technical writing was an assignment to rewrite and redesign the instructions for constructing a polytunnel. We were presented with a mishmash of hand-written and typed instructions, and rudimentary drawings and graphics. We were required to first critique the existing instructions by discussing problems with the content, layout, organization, writing style, and graphics. That was the easy part as, even from a novice's perspective, it was fairly straightforward to outline everything that was wrong with the initial instructions.

The second part of the assignment was to revise the instructions, based on that critique, in order to improve upon the original document. We were advised that the instructions should be produced to a high standard to be as professional as possible. That was the hard part. The only software package that I was familiar with at the time was Word so...that's what I used to produce my so-called 'professional set of instructions'. Yes, it turned out as disastrous as it sounds.

I've mentioned before that creativity does not come easily to me so when we were advised to design a cover page and that we could be as imaginative as we liked in the layout and design approach to the revised instructions, my heart just sank. I really had no idea what I was doing and it showed. I basically just cobbled together the information that I already had and tried to produce a layout that was more logical in its outline.

Image source

I had no idea how to go about improving upon or re-creating the original graphics so I just imported the image files into the Word document. These turned out blurry with unintelligible print. I did use my rudimentary Photoshop skills to try and clean up the images but the results were only a slight improvement. While I followed the guidelines to ensure the instruction steps were in the active voice, given that I had never even heard of the passive voice before, this took some getting used to. 

Given how much I've learned in the past year in both the Masters course and in my current job position, if I had only known then what I know now. My previous blog highlighted the endless creative opportunities provided by the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of products. If I had been introduced to InDesign and Illustrator earlier, I would definitely have been able to produce a far better quality assignment. 

What this assignment taught me was the importance of research, of knowing the principles of good design, of understanding what the basics of instructional design are, and breaking the assignment down into its component parts - writing and graphics. Fortunately, I was not alone in my struggles as a year on, my fellow students and I still joke about the horrors of the assignment and revisiting it again did result in some PTSD. I only re-read the assignment brief as I couldn't bring myself to look at my final submission. Some things are just better left in the past.

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"Whatever good things we build end up building us." ~ Jim Rohn