Reflective Slide Docs

Ryan Hutchinson | COMS 2311 | Jacobsen

Communicating with Employers

UNIT 1

My success depends on my ability to communicate with future employees. Most of my fist communications with employers will never be face to face. The ability to put who I am and what I stand for onto a document is very important.

Ryan Hutchinson | Reflective SlideDoc 2

Creating a professional documents with process maturity and strategic content takes a lot of refinement. This class allowed me to develop these documents for future use. Companies are the sole audience for these documents making sure the things they want to see are easy to find is essential

My package including: • Resume• Cover letter• Project Portfolio• Thank you letter

are now a representation of me and the things I would like to show employers.

Process maturity means having a consistent content strategy.

Documenting Procedures UNIT 2

This diagram from class slides is a great reference for creating proposals. It Identifies the major points of the proposal. Starting with identifying the problem, moving into an explanation of your solution, then the logistics of getting it done. Finally a conclusion to tie it all together.

Ryan Hutchinson | Reflective SlideDoc 3

A large part of my career will be solving problems. To solve these problems in a work environment will require me to propose a solution. A project created in class allowed me to gain this skill.

Even though solving the problem of “How to load a dishwasher” will show up in my career, the audience of college students that the proposal was focused on was a great, fun problem to solve. It gave me good experience into proposal writing

Usability

UNIT 3

Ryan Hutchinson | Reflective SlideDoc 4

As a computer programmer, developing user friendly applications or simply usable interfaces is important. Being able to create a test and then find outcomes to that test is a great skill.

I thoroughly enjoyed creating and then analyzing the data of our tests that were conducted in class. I appreciated Kylie talking about some of the other technologies that are used in conducting these tests in industry, such as eye tracking headsets. They would be great to watch where a user looks after being asked to complete a task on an application.

Usability is important in application development.

This is some of the data collected in the in class tests. It is great to see the visualization of the results. It really shows what needed to be changed. Tying the data back to the profiles of the users was also interesting. In the case of user 3, the user had never applied or seen the product therefore was not confident. This showed the culture of the certain user was different and that this style of instructions was not for them.

Proposing Actions to Decision-Makers UNIT 4

Ryan Hutchinson | Reflective SlideDoc 5

The team environment created for the final project presented lots of problems that needed solving.

Firstly, getting the team fully on board with the chosen proposal was difficult. Everybody wanted to do their own proposal, this created a lack of motivation.

The solution was to use the scorecard to find and outright winner on the proposal. After walking through that and finding a winner no arguments could be made and the common goal was to get an A.

Problem Solution

Secondly, communication was lacking in the first couple days of work. Some things were being done twice, other not done at all.

The solution was to make sure that tasks were assigned before leaving class. This was critical to make sure everything was getting done.

Finally, making sure that everyone contributes to the project equally. The problem again was that the person with the chosen proposal wanted to do most of the work

The solution was to get simple ideas from the chosen proposal’s author, which allowed the other members of the team to complete them. Therefore evening the work load.

Going through this team process allowed me to gain experience for the next team project. This will allow me to implement the solutions found before the problems even arise.

Technology, had a large impact on the project. We used Microsoft Office online. This allowed us to track changes and all work on the presentation at the same time. Without this we would have had many different designs and versions of our presentation, all different than the other. This collaborative technology allowed us to follow our timeline very well and track the impact of each member of the team.

Presentation UNIT 5

Ryan Hutchinson | Reflective SlideDoc 6

A presentation allows you to show the all the hard work done defined in the last few slides. Presenting the work in a way that will positively effect the view of your instruction set and group. This is not an easy task.

The rubric we created for ourselves was tough.

Our group focused on keeping the attention on the speaker. Our slides had minimal data, the idea was to let the speaker explain to keep the audience engaged. We were a group of confident speakers and we were poised to do great.

Where we needed to improve was on the design of the presentation itself. Looking at this storyboard it is obvious that not much thought went into using different styles (other than bullets). Tip for future self: Look at presentation in storyboard format as above. Identify different title locations, fonts and design styles. Don’t just use a template.

Reflection UNIT 6

Ryan Hutchinson | Reflective SlideDoc 7

It was very interesting to see what classmates thought of me. It important for me to see if the way I am looking to be perceived is the way im actually being perceived.

“super smart”“avid coffee drinker”

“smart, witty, sarcastic”“Reliable”

“you somehow got up early enough to dress nicely a few classes”

It is very humbling to see my pupil’s thoughts of me. Some funny, some thoughtful. Either way it allows me to get a sense of what kind of image I am giving off.

This Reflective SlideDoc allowed me to expand what I learned on throughout the year in both content and design. Look how much better this storyboard looks:

I will be using SlideDoc in the future instead of boring papers.

I hope that the audience (Kylie) can appreciate that I have taken the advice from my past projects and applied it to this project. It won’t stop here, all my future projects will incorporate that advice.

Conclusion

Ryan Hutchinson | Reflective SlideDoc 8

In conclusion, technical writing has a new meaning to me now. I understand it is not only technical documents and instructions but every document that performs work. Every document I create in my professional career will be a technical writing.

I am thankful for the skills I learned in this class. This include but are not limited to creating professional documents, procedure documentation, usability tests and reports, collaboration technology, and presentation design.

References

Jacobsen, Kylie. "Proposal Writing." Class. English Building, Lubbock. 12 Apr. 2016. Lecture.

https://ttu.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-1809834- dt-content-rid-8242296_1/xid-8242296_1