Softdoc

Course Assignments

1. Help Project. Design and implement a windows help module.	20%
2. Critique of Online Help. Write a 2 page discussion of the organization and design principles operative in an online help module of your choice. Use the categories and concepts described in the readings by the various authors in your reading assignment.	10%
3. Web-Structure Exercise. Brief exercise mapping the organization of a website. Pick a website you find interesting, and map 25 screens or so of it. Turn in a spreadsheet showing a) the URL of the site, b) the mapping of the screens in accordance with the conventions outlined in MyWebStructure online help module, and c) a one to two page memo describing what you have learned about the nature of the website from mapping it. Consider the explanation of the Nagasaki site in MyWebStructure as a suitable model for your findings. It contains, in a very condensed way, the sort of thing you should report. To flesh out that explanation, you would add (brief) specifics about navigation and audience, as informed by your readings for this course. The project may be done in teams if you prefer, with a rough multiplicative factor depending on the size of the team.	10%
4. Documentation Plan. Pick a software product and write a documentation plan for it. You may use a product being developed or already marketed by your company, a Drexel University product, or a software product you are familiar with through regular use.	20%
5. Documentation Project. Write paper or online documentation for an existing software product.	20%
6. Document Testing Assignment. Test and revise an existing piece of software documentation, either on paper or online.	20%

Notes:

Assignments 4-6 are parts of a related project.

You need to work in a group on assignment 1. You may work alone or in a group on assignments 4-6.

Group projects will receive both an individual score and a group grade. Students working in a group should indicate on their cover page who in the group bears primary responsibility for each part of the project. They may indicate that they wish to waive the right for separate grades.

Groups should pick a project of a size suitable to the size of the number of members involved.

Your document specifications should be for a complete system of documentation, but the other two assignments may involve work on segments of this larger project. That is, you may write and test part of a software manual.

For assignments 4-6, each student should produce 3-5 pages of material for each assignment.