Alex's blog

Well, the project is over, and this is my last individual blog.  I think our Documentation turned out successful, with ~20 pages of Documentation, ~5 pages of Usability Test Report, and ~5 pages of Usability Test Materials.  I think if I were required to make a Documentation in the future, I could do so effectively, having taken ENGL421.

This week, we completed our Usability Test.  Now we have to write up the Appendix section for the Documentation and make necessary changes to the Documentation.  After completing the testing, we do not anticipate having to make any major changes to our Ducumentation, only smaller additions to existing steps to make the process go even smoother.  The final Documentation with Usability Test appendix and Usability Test materials are all due by Wendssday at 4:30pm.

-Who:  Ansbaugh, Davitt, Kreul, Simpson

-When:  Wednesday, 4/29/09

-Where:  ENGL421 classroom

-Goal:  finalize plans for Documentation completion

-Topics discussed:  Usability Study Report, Documentation changes, extra credit option

-Who:  Ansbaugh, Davitt, Kreul, Simpson

-When:  Monday, 4/27/09

-Where:  ENGL421 classroom

-Goal:  finalize arrangements for usability study

-Topics discussed:  documents to be printed, exact plans for time with our test users

-Decisions made:  6 copies of Documentation printed; 6 copies of pre survey printed with space for our observations and post interviews

This week, we completed our Documentation rough draft.  Because our Documentation has close to 40 steps and nearly as many screen shots, condensing the content down to a reasonable number of pages was quite a challenge.  We ended up cropping many images and increasing the page margins to reduce white space.  Now, I think our Documentation is a bit too cramped, so I will be working to improve it's visual appeal.  I will also be responsible for printing our Documentation copies for our usability test on Monday at 8pm in BRNG.

-Who:  Ansbaugh, Davitt, Kreul, Simpson

-When:  Friday, 4/17/09

-Where:  ENGL421 classroom

-Goal:  begin documentation rough draft

-Topics discussed:  screenshots that need to be changed, usability test questionairre formatting

This past week, we finished and presented our story board.  With it's completion, we now have a fairly complete set of screenshots to use in our Documentation.  We now begin the task of writing the Documentation rough draft, due next week.  Because we were so thorough on our story board, creating the draft shouldn't be too difficult.  Lastly, we have already scheduled our usability testing and reserved a room.

This week, we wrote up our proposal.  Now, I am going to make the storyboard.  The storyboard will have text describing the steps.  It will also have images captured by Aaron.  Then, Stew and Sam will edit and proofread the storyboard before we turn it in on Wednesday.

-Who:  Ansbaugh, Davitt, Kreul, Simpson

-When:  Monday, 4/6/09

-Where:  ENGL421 classroom

-Goal:  get our documentation plan approved

-Topics discussed:  documentation topic, proposal due Wed

Well, our rough draft is done, now just editing and making it look pretty.  I got to have some fun creating our visual:  I vandalized a Wikipedia page.  Of course, I changed it back right away, but it was still fun to go to the Wikipedia page for the color blue and see the message "the color to the right is actually red, not blue.  We apologize for the inconvenience."

The actual page can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue.