Chattanooga State Community College

User Documentation for Technology Products (A Career Builder Course)

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Course Name

User Documentation for Technology Products (A Career Builder Course)

Contact Hours: 50 (an estimated time frame devoted to a course of study from start to finish that can vary from student to student)

Course Description

In User Documentation for Technology Products, you will:

  1. Study and practice task orientation which is critical to good user-oriented documents.
  2. Review writing styles common in user documentation, especially passive voice.
  3. Write two sets of instructions, the second of which you create and apply a template with customized character and paragraph styles.
  4. Create properly written and formatted standard operating procedures, study the design and components of user guides.
  5. Create a beautiful user guide of your own.

(This course builds on Technical Communication: The Profession, Writing Style, and Format; the companion for this course is Technical Reports for Industry, Government, and Business.)


Who Should Enroll:
  •  Communication Professionals
  •  Technical Writers/Communicators
  •  Information Specialists
  •  Business Analysts
  •  Research Report Writers
  •  Engineers


Bundle Pricing
We recommend registering for the full three-course Comprehensive (Career Builder) Certificate in Technical Writing to receive the best price possible. Each course is priced individually, but when you enroll in the certificate program and prepay, you'll receive a discount that is included in the total cost of the package. 


Please note: Course of study may be completed earlier than indicated.

Outcome

By the end of the course - User Documentation for Technology Products, you will be able to:

  • Conduct an effective task-orientation analysis, and develop a user document accordingly.
  • Recognize and correct wordy, ambiguous passive-voice constructions.
  • Write two sets of instructions, the second of which uses character and paragraph styles.
  • Format reference information such as commands, subroutines, APIs.
  • Format the text of a standard operating procedure (or write one of your own).
  • Understand the common components of a user guide, and format the text and graphics of one.
  • Write your own user guide on a technology product.
  • Learn about the technical-documentation industry in Read Me First! (Sun Microsystems) and successfully take the quizzes.
  • Create an online portfolio, and add items you've created in this course.


Assessment

This course contains numerous reading quizzes to help students measure their progress and mastery of the materials. A score of 85 or higher is required to complete the course successfully. 

Outline

 Week 1:  Task Orientation, Writing Mechanics, Constructing Text.
 Week 2:  Passive Voice and Other Writing Style Issues, Illustrations.
 Week 3:  Brief Instructions 1, Document Types.
 Week 4:  Formatting Reference Information, Document Types.
 Week 5:  Brief Instructions 2, Character and Paragraph Styles, GUIs.
 Week 6:  Standard Operating Procedures (Formatting), International and Legal Issues.
 Week 7:  Components of Standard User Guides.
 Week 8:  Final Project: User Guide for a Technology Product.

Books



Plus a free online textbook authored by the instructor.

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