Developing Online Literacy Instruction and User Testing

Assignment Prompt

For your last major assignment, you created a proposal for a solution to a problem in a local community. For this assignment, you will craft two digital multimodal arguments directed toward a specific audience (one audience will be a technical audience, the other will be a non-technical audience). These will be stakeholders who would be able to implement the change you are suggesting with your research. 

This argument will take the form of an infographic arguing for your proposed solution to the problem you explored. This is an opportunity to put into motion the suggestions from your proposal paper. 

For example, if you argued in your research proposal paper that the best way to encourage Oxford residents to recycle more is for the city to provide larger recycling bins, you could use this project to address one of the technical stakeholders around this issue, such as the city council, or the company responsible for collecting recycling. Then the other non-technical stakeholder would be Oxford residents.  

As we have discussed in class, a digital multimodal text combines various modes of communication (linguistic, visual, spatial, gestural, and aural) using digital tools. Your assignment will not be assessed based upon your knowledge of digital tools. Rather, your digital multimodal argument and the accompanying reflection will demonstrate: reflective rhetorical decision-making; attention to audience, purpose, argument, and genre expectations; experimentation with composing strategies; and reflection about your composing process. 

Following Melanie Gagich’s article “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing,” you will follow these steps to create your remediated argument:

1. Determine your rhetorical situation.

2. Review and analyze other multimodal texts.

3. Gather content, media, and tools.

4. Cite and attribute information appropriately.

5. Begin drafting your text.

6. Share your text with others.

7. Revise and edit.

8. Reflect upon your work. 

Extended Writer’s Reflection

A major component of this project is your explanation and reflection of your work. In this 750 - 1250  word essay (or podcast or video essay–the choice is yours!), you will reflect on the process of composing your remediation, including your rhetorical choices (namely genre, audience, and purpose). You will also consider your past uses and understandings of multimodality, how your understanding of the term has changed, and how you might apply what you learned from this project to future contexts and situations.  

Below are questions to help guide your reflection, organized by the steps of the project. You do not have to answer the questions in this specific order or answer every single one; however, the more thorough your reflection, the better. 

• Which audiences did you choose to remediate your project for? What argument did you make? 

• How would you summarize your project? What was the solution you implemented? What did you end up doing or creating? How could this help to solve the problem? 

• What examples did you look at before drafting your work? Was any text particularly influential?  How did these examples inform your rhetorical and design choices? 

• What tools or technologies did you use to create your project? How did you learn the skills you needed to complete the work?  

• What was your process for creating this project? How did you plan? Did you have to change or adapt your process along the way? Did you have any insights during the process? Did you hit any roadblocks?

• What rhetorical choices did you make when creating your project? How were you aware of the audience, kairos, ethos, exigence, pathos, and/or logos? What are examples of specific decisions you made based on these? Remember, you do not need to address ALL of these rhetorical concepts---just the ones most important to your project. 

• How did you meet the expectations of the community you’re composing for? 

• How do the affordances of the new mode allow you to make the argument differently?

• How did you cite and give credit to your sources?

• What did you take away from peer and/or instructor feedback on your project? What was the most helpful feedback you received? What changes did you consider or make based on feedback? 

• What are your takeaways from this project? What did you learn? What skills did you build upon?

• Is there anything you would do differently, given more time or resources?

• Do you think your project will have any impact in your community? Why or why not?

• How has your understanding of “multimodal” composing changed? Where do you think you might use multimodal composing in the future? Are there are takeaways from this project that might inform your future multimodal work?

Criteria for the Final Draft

Successful submission will include:

• Two (2) infographics: One design for a technical audience and for a non-technical audience.

• Make meaningful rhetorical use of visual, auditory, and alphabetic forms of meaning-making in ways appropriate for genre and audience (you will be making a similar argument to the one in your paper, but you must transform the argument for the new medium)

• Demonstrate reflective rhetorical decision-making, including a clear argument, awareness of the rhetorical situation, and appropriate use of rhetorical appeals. 

• Demonstrate meaningful reflection and metacognition about the composing process, learning, and rhetorical decision-making. 

• Organize the material presented in a coherent, logical manner.

• Include evidence of editing for style and conventions: revising text and voiceover for concision and clarity, editing for spelling and punctuation

Discussion Board Assignments: 

The Remediation Project

1) Read the Remediation Project Assignment prompt (the major assignment we will be working on for the rest of the course). 

2) Write a short post responding to the prompt (minimum 100 words). What question do you have about the assignment? What ideas do you have about remediating your proposal argument? What do you think might be challenging for you in completing this assignment?

Multimodal Composing Strategies

Remediated from Miami's ENG 111

1) Read: "Introduction to Multimodal Composing" by Melanie Gagich.

2 ) Write Post: Respond  to ALL of the following questions:

• Gagich makes numerous arguments about why multimodal composing is a valuable activity in a writing class. Which of these arguments do you find most and least persuasive and why?

• Gagich draws on the New London Group to outline five modes of communication that are often combined in multimodal texts: linguistic, visual, aural, spatial, and gestural. Find a short digital text (a social media post or an online video or graphic) and discuss how at least three of these modes work together in the text to make meaning. 

• Gagich outlines a series of steps to follow in composing a multimodal text. Which of these steps do you think will be most crucial for you in composing your remediation project? Why? Are there any processes or steps you think Gagich could have included? If you have composed multimodal texts before, what strategies have worked best for you in the past?

3) Comment on two posts. What are some similarities and differences you notice between you and your's peer's thoughts on multimodal composing? How might you extend or complicate your peer's understanding of multimodality?

Infographics & Rhetorical Design 

Step 1: Search the web to find infographics related to your local issue. 

Step 3: Write a post (minimum 200 words) in which you analyze at least three rhetorical choices you saw in the infographics. You might focus on word choice, typography, images, hierarchy, accessibility and how these various elements are combined. What rhetorical choices did you find most persuasive? Why? Were there any rhetorical choices you were less persuaded by? Why? How might you draw inspiration from the examples you analyzed in making plans for your own infographics?

Step 4: Comment on two peer's posts. You might explain why you agree or disagree with aspects of their analysis or you might suggest other infographics that you think might be relevant to their topic and worth checking out. 

Design Tools & Accessibility Reflection

For this discussion post, we're going to crowdsource tips and tricks for the various design tools you and your peers are using. In about 200 words or so, reflect on the following: 

1) What tools are you using for your infographics? (Including design, image creation/finding, etc.)

2) Have you used these tools before? 

3) What are the challenges to using these tools? 

4) What makes these tools appealing or easy to use? 

5) When you get stuck, how have you overcome this challenge? 

6) How are you incorporating accessibility into your infographic? (Charts/graphs, alt-text, contrasting fonts/colors, etc.) 

Infographics Peer Review

Step One: Submit your infographics to this assignment. 

Step Two: Respond For each member in your group, you should write a detailed response addressing the following questions:

• What is the key point of this infographics? What action does this infographics want to persuade it's audience to take? 

• What do you find most persuasive about this infographics? Why?

• What is the most persuasive visual image in this infographics? What makes it engaging?

• What was confusing or difficult to follow about this infographics? 

• What might your peer do to revise it to make it more engaging?

• What is the largest change your peer could make to their infographic in order to make it more persuasive and engaging? Why?

• How did your peer consider the audience? Could you tell which infographic was designed for a technical audience vs. a non-technical audience? How so? 

• Based on your own position as a reader/viewer, which infographic do you find more persuasive? Why? 

Step Three:  Reflect Respond to this Canvas assignment with a short reflection on two questions as well as the detailed responses you wrote for Step Two. What is the most valuable feedback you received from your peers and why? What is the most valuable feedback you gave peers and why?

Videos (embedded in Canvas): 

Introduction to Infographics

Designing Infographics, pt. 1 

Designing Infographics, pt. 2

Slides: 

Infographics Overview

Designing Infographics

Bad Design Challenge

Resources:

Resources on Making Infographics

Infographics Canvas Module User Experience Test 

Background 

User experience testing (Bjork, 2018) of the Canvas module “Infographics” I developed for module 5 for the Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE) was conducted with a total of 3 (N=3) “students.” Goals of user testing were to: 

• Consider the overall usability of activities and content; 

• Consider the effectiveness of materials in the development of user-created infographics; 

• Speculate response to module activities in lieu of GSOLE related/informed scholarship; and 

• Develop plan of action for three (3) revisions for the module. 

Due to Canvas restrictions, and ensuring participants would not need to pay to access the module, I made a copy of the module, and then added each participant as a “teacher” since Canvas is free for teachers. To simulate the student experience, I told participants to select “Student View” before working through the module. I explained the module context and explained that this module would be assigned after students in a first year writing course would have already conducted research on a large project and are remediating the information into an infographic. 

I encouraged each participant to conduct the work on a lap-top computer. I had considered watching students complete the module through a think-aloud protocol  (which is what I am used to with other user-testing experiences, incorporating a bit of Asmuth, 2020), but the schedules of the participants did not align with my own availability. Therefore, I talked to each participant after they had completed the module, effectively treating the module as an asynchronous online course (Mick & Middlebrook, 2015) and the user-testing as a reflection of the overall course. A limitation of this type of testing is that because the students were in “student mode,” the discussion board posts were not saved, nor could the students interact with each other. Future testing would require students to enroll in the course as students, which would require either an institutional registration or possibly moving the module out of Canvas into another learning management system, and would best be served by a viewed or think-aloud protocol user-testing experience/environment. 

Participants

Participants (N=3) in user testing included two undergraduate students who are currently enrolled at Miami University, and one adult “student” who is not currently enrolled in a degree program, but is considering going back to school for an undergraduate degree. The two Miami students are second year college students, but because of credit hours one is designated as a sophomore, and the other is designated as a junior. They have both already completed our first year writing requirement, so even though they would not be the ideal candidates for true user testing (approximating students enrolled in a first year writing course), they are the closest approximation that I could recruit for the user testing. The non-traditional student has completed 12 hours of undergraduate courses, and has not taken first year writing, therefore, is an accurate candidate for the content and user-testing.   

Participants were given opportunities to choose their own pseudonym based on Halloween costumes they have worn in the past. The sophomore student selected Spiderman, the junior selected Whiskers, and the non-traditional student selected Linda. 

Findings, Speculation, & Revisions

1.  Users appreciated the video introduction as an overall framing tool, but wanted previous student examples of infographics that relate to the assignment. 

Feedback: All three users mentioned that the video was a helpful framing for the assignment, and appreciated that I walked students through what an infographic is. The various examples of infographics were useful to return to (in both videos). However, Spiderman and Linda both mentioned wanting the video to include my walking through the Canvas module itself. And Whiskers mentioned that I sounded a little breathy/rushed in the video, and I could slow down a bit. 

Implication/Speculation: I think the videos not only present my tone (which I am hoping is encouraging and supportive) but also incorporate video as a way of connection (McLure & Mahaffey, 2020). This would also echo the eventual video/screencast feedback that I would provide students for their final submission (Vincelette & Bostic, 2013). Incorporating student examples can help students know what is expected of them, but until I have existing examples from students who consent to their work being used as such, I would need to most likely design them myself. 

Revision: Create a framing video that walks users through the Canvas module itself, instead of just jumping straight into the information about infographics. While this module itself is the final module in a course and students would have spent time in the course navigating the design of the modules, I do think a framing for each module could be helpful in guiding students through the modules/activities of each unit. Finally, I could script the videos first to make sure I am not rushing and nervous as I am recording the video. 

2. Users enjoyed the bad design challenge, but wondered if they should also make a “good infographic to get some feedback” (Whiskers).  

Feedback: Whiskers was the most vocal about their enjoyment of the bad design challenge, but offered the following suggestion: “Maybe you could also add an assignment where we have to make an infographic, a good infographic to get some feedback on so that way I know that I’m doing it correctly.” This feedback is helpful in considering how to make assignments build toward the final product. 

Implication/Speculation: Accessibility should not only consider the technical aspects of a course, but should allow users to “enjoy, perform, work on, avail of, and participate in a resource, technology, activity, opportunity, or product at an equal or comparable level with others” (Oswal in Yergeau et al., 2013). Therefore, when thinking about the enjoyment factor (which is what I am doing with the bad design challenge), I recognize that I missed an opportunity to encourage good/effective design practices in the course. So this holistic/expansive definition of accessibility considers how students work through the course and how they practice throughout the course. 

Revision: Add an activity where students develop an infographic based on either some data or even a reading they had to complete for the course (all working from similar ideas) that would have students and the instructor respond to the infographic with what works well and how it adheres to principles of design. This lets students practice making infographics, and gives us as a community of readers the opportunity to reflect on what a student is doing well (the design challenge is fun, but I recognize that students may want feedback on a “good” infographic before making their own). 

3. Users asked for more walk-through resources, especially if they had not used graphic design programs/platforms (Linda). 

Feedback: Linda mentioned that they appreciated the fact that I mentioned that I am not going to grade them heavily on graphic design, especially because they do not have any background in graphic design. But in line with this thinking, Linda mentioned that it might be useful to have video introductions to different design programs. While there is a list of design resources students can use and access, a list of possible choices might not help students make decisions about platforms. And walking through how to make an infographic in something like Canvas could help reduce the stress load or nervousness that a student might have when presented with a challenge like designing an infographic.  

Implication/Speculation: This echoes GSOLE’s tenets of OLI Accessibility and Inclusivity, specifically number 3: “Multimodal composition and alphabetic writing may require different technologies; therefore, those involved should be appropriately prepared to use them.” Ensuring that students are prepared to use the platforms can reduce stress on the part of the student, but also make my expectations clear as an instructor. This again echoes Oswal’s definition of accessibility (as referenced in the previous insight), ensuring that students from different backgrounds and experiences have the tools (and confidence!) they need to accomplish the task set out for them (this also echoes Ledgerwood’s (2022) notion of differentiation, even though Ledgerwood is using HyperDocs). 

Revision: This is one where I’m thinking about a few different ideas. One would be my own resource video walkthroughs that showcase different design platforms/programs and how I use them. One could be student-developed resources. I could possibly partner with a campus based writing center or writing across the curriculum program that might develop these tools for the campus. Or I could go find existing videos and not reinvent the wheel. So while I do think that adding additional resources about the platforms/programs would benefit students, I want to encourage students to do their own deep thinking and learning when confronted with a new platform: So maybe even a video that explains how I approach a new platform/program (doing my own think-aloud protocol!). 

Conclusion

Overall, it appears that the module was moderately successful in having students create their own infographics; however, it is apparent that students who have experience with creative tools/platforms like Canva or the Adobe suite had lower levels of nervousness with this module/assignment. Additionally, the use of video is encouraged, and I could expand these video resources for students to ensure they have all the tools they need to be successful for this module. One thing that I did not mention in the feedback section is the discussion boards (Seward, 2018), and how they could be considered to be more participatory beyond responding to other students/colleagues. I think that as they currently exist, they attempt to create conversations, but I wonder if incorporating video or some other kind of multimodal discussion board/space would allow students to connect to one another in the course and get students composing and reflecting through multimodal genres.