All regular assignments are due by the beginning of class on the date indicated. The Final Project is due by 6:00pm on the Tuesday of finals week. You can turn in assignments by email (cholstro@u.washington.edu), the CollectIt Drop Box, or as a hardcopy in class. Hardcopies and PDFs guarantee that your formatting does not get lost. Late assignment will be accepted at the instructor's discretion, but they will receive a reduced grade.
Includes in-class exercises, presentations, and participation in class discussions.
Choose a software project. Read about it, determine the audience for its documentation, determine what types of documents you'll need to write, and write a documentation plan.
Due Week 2 (April 7, 2009)
Write the introduction (Who is the audience? What is the technology? What is it good for? What will the reader get out of the doc? etc.) and the installation instructions for your software.
Due Week 4 (April 21, 2009)
Write the HowTo documentation, describing how to actually use the software. Focus on task-orientation, but provide concept and reference information if necessary. Your HowTo does not need to be exhaustive. For more complex software, consider choosing the most important aspects of the software and describing how to use those features.
Due Week 7 (May 12, 2009)
Covers class readings and discussions.
Week 8 (May 19, 2009)
Pull together your introduction, installation instructions, and HowTo with any other documentation necessary (FAQ, tutorial, concept, reference, etc.) for a complete documentation set. Choose an appropriate publishing method (web pages, PDF, Help Center, Wizard, combination of these, etc.) for submitting your final project.
New content is expected for this assignment, but you should also incorporate feedback from previous assignments to make this final product as polished as possible.
In additional to the final documentation set, include a short summary of why you chose your publishing method and what other possibilities you considered.
Due Finals Week (June 9, 2009)