Document Development Exposition: Instructions and Usability Test Script

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

Planning
My initial plan was to write instructions on how to tie a necktie.
I wanted to showcase a simple knot for beginners, the oriental knot.
My plan was to use images to showcase the steps, because just following steps through text would
be difficult.

First Draft (for peer editing)

The goal of my first draft was to give a solid introductory statement for why someone tying a tie
would want to read my instructions, and why the oriental knot is right for them.
I showed an example of the knot and cited my sources.
Then I had image showing all the visual instructions.
Then a wall of text with the written instructions.

Second Draft (for your packet)

My goal was to follow my peer reviews and make instructions easier to read.
My peer review wanted me to change some of the wording and to make the numbers from the text
instructions to align with the visual instructions.
I followed my peer reviews advice.
The most difficult change was changing the wording. My reviewer did not speak English as his first
language and my steps are complicated, so I had a hard time making the steps clear, but I did my
best.
I learned that you need to make sure your document is simple and concise because not everyone
who reads it is going to come from the same background and be able to understand strangely
worded sentences.

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

My goal was to make the big changes I needed to make to get the instructions to the standards of
the feedback I was left.
I removed the unnecessary images, links, and text that did not contribute anything to the
instructions.
I made it so my written instructions had the corresponding image instruction below it so it was easier
to follow. This was challenging because I had to divide my original image into six new images and
place them below every step.
Document Development Exposition: Instructions and Usability Test Script