Snapchat Research Project: User Guide (Solo or Team Project) Overview: This is a learner-centered activity - your personal application experience, ideas, and independent research results guide the direction of this assignment. The assignment will help students develop their ability to describe usage of applications, as well as aid in their understanding and explanation of advanced, innovative social media techniques utilized in the contemporary professional business environment. Instructions: Take the role of an Information Technologist and create a user guide for business use of Snapchat. The user guide will be targeted for new business owners with no experience in Snapchat and cover technical aspects, best practices, as well as contain examples of successful use of the application in business. Include an original infographic and cite sources in the user guide. Some class time will be provided to begin work. Solo user guides are usually about 4-7 pages long and contain multiple screen shots, lists, and images. The completed user guides will be posted on the course website for your classmates to view (student names will be removed – guides are posted anonymously). Brief written critiques from classmates will provide user guide creators with anonymous feedback. Length/Format: Solo guides are produced in Microsoft Word and are usually about 4-7 pages long and contain multiple screen shots, lists, paragraphs of text, and images. Length for teams of 2: 8-14 pages; teams of 3 (maximum size of team): 12-21 pages. User guides are saved as Microsoft Word .docx or .doc files and emailed to the instructor by the due date/time. Content: User guides are designed to be easily understood by beginners yet still contain advanced and complex details.

1. Students will need to begin the user guide by including an application overview with text and screenshots. Use a bulleted or numbered list if desired. (Screenshots can be produced by the smartphone or tablet itself in most cases by pressing certain buttons, or by taking pictures of a screen with another smartphone, tablet, or camera.)

o How does one use the application? o Why is it popular? Why is the application attractive to users?

2. Next, provide an example of successful use of the application by a business. o Provide at least one example. (Teams may provide more examples.) o Cite sources, including online articles, etc. o Include many details, including images. o Why was the business successful?

3. Then, deliver a technical how-to for achieving one of the techniques utilized by the businesses. (Teams may look at more than one technique and provide how-to instructions for both.)

o Include screen shots and detailed instructions. o Your goal with this section of the user guide is to provide a beginner with full instructions for applying the

technique with the application. Any user, including a novice, should be able to follow and apply your instructions. 4. Include an original infographic somewhere in the document. This may be challenging – feel free to ask questions on open

lab day if you need help coming up with an infographic idea (relating it to one of the business uses of the application might be a good plan). Links to sample infographics related to social media are available on the course website. Infographics can be made with Word SmartArt or you can try a free infographic generator online (search “infographic” and many websites are available – the infographic is based on your idea and content, the online applications just aid in the assembly).

Open Lab: Tuesday, March 20 will be a Snapchat open lab day. Begin working on the user guide. On this day students will need to share at least one example of the successful use of the application by a business with the instructor, and your infographic plan. Work on your original infographic. Submission: Save your Microsoft Word file as a .docx or .doc file and email it to jhall@coe.edu by 10:00 PM on Monday, March 26. Critiques: Student names will be replaced with numbers on the user guides and then the guides will be uploaded to the course website for brief written critiques by a classmate or two in class on Tuesday, March 27. Critique results (written feedback) will be sent to the instructor and then forwarded to the document creator.

Social Media Applications in Business: Snapchat Assignment

Application:

Points: 40 Due: Monday, 3/26 10:00 PM (By Email)