Document Development Exposition: Instructions and Usability Memo

ENGL 2116
Amanda Poteate
Explain in detail your document’s development from planning to finish, describing your
challenges, how you overcame them, and what you learned.

Planning
This document was a group project, so we started by examining our assigned webpage and testing it
out ourselves. After conducting the usability test, which provided much of our content, we compiled
all of the interview/test information to observe overall results. We also collaborated on deciding
which test questions to ask in the interviews and how they would give us the most reliable and
helpful feedback to include in the memo.

First Draft (for peer editing)

I tackled the document by typing up the summary and objectives first, to set the tone and pace of
the memo and better determine what we need to focus on throughout the document. After
completing the other sections with my teammates (areas of strength and improvements,
questionnaire, etc.), I then chose to focus on appendix one in order to outline the initial website
positives and negatives and determine what we can change for appendix two. Appendix two was
drafted according to the experiment results in order to make the webpage easier to navigate.

Second Draft (for your packet)

For the memo, we did not include peer review due to time constraints and a desire to have more
time for completion. But, I did review the document with my team members and made edits the
night before the due date. I came across challenges in the appendices, having never written one
before. We did our best to make as many edits as seemed appropriate, and I added text to the
appendices to explain our choices (which I later learned belong in the memo body, and made
changes accordingly!).

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

I took the feedback and comments from grading to begin editing the memo. First, I focused on
memo formatting, like spacing and headings. Next, I tackled grammar and spacing issues for clarity.
This took up the most time due to re-reading the document and double checking spacings between
words. Finally, I focused on the body and content of the memo. Most of the detail that we included
typed in the appendices were moved to the memo body, and the appendices were edited to include
entire original instructions and complete revised instructions.