February 14, 2014

Humans are constantly bombarded by visuals day in and day out. There are flyers across campus that advertises various club events as well as flyers that let us know if there’s an off-campus house available for rent. Those are one set of documents that are plastered around campus.

Then, there are least known documents that are available to students, faculty and staff about the technological services and how they are used.  In this post, I will refer to them as “information documents” because they are used to give a basic run down of common programs used by the student, faculty and staff on campus. People rarely know about these documents so what will capture the readers to read that sheet of paper?

Tara and Chris came into our seminar as guest speakers on “Creating Quality Support Documents”.  Teaching workshops is one of the responsibilities of a senior consultant and when you teach a workshop, there must be a handout as well so that students can follow along as well have something to follow when they are alone.

Through this seminar, I noticed there are a few key things about a document that will capture people’s attention.

• Font-type: Font can be a great eye catcher. Some fonts have personality and some are very plain. However, too much of one type of font may tire the eyes, or even worse, lose the reader. Simple readable font is essential for pieces that are long and contain a lot of information where as fancy font is good for getting people’s attention

• Font-Size: Font-size is like Font-type. It is best used to use different sizes (usually large sizes) when trying to capture a reader’s attention however it may come off as someone “screaming” as the reader.

• Tables: Tables are great for organizing and aligning text. The great thin about this feature is that I can hide the outlines of the table an no one will know if I  used a table or not.  It provides a more clean look when trying to list contact information or long

• Bullet points:  These are great for listing almost anything (just like this one!). Bullet points are great for taking notes and especially writing outlines. The great thing about this option is that it makes listing information easier on the eyes. It is also very eye catching and people typically expect each bullet point to be significant in regards to the topic.

• Color: Color can either make or break an informational document. Since this internship is focused on various programs and services DoIT offers, color can play an important factor on how students, faculty and staff will understand the document.

• Photos: When it comes to teaching different programs, pictures are worth a thousand words.  Photos are great as guidance but from experience, teaching anyone about technology through pictures only is pretty hard. For an optimal learning experience, text and photos are best!

There are probably more techniques to enhance the quality of support documents that I have not learned yet but those 6 bullet points are the ones I believe that are important. They are also very simple features but they play a huge role as to how the document will come out.

Shadowing Posts:

• 2.11.2014-Introducing Student Help Desk Responsibilities
• 2.12.2014-Busy Hour
• 2.13.2014- Snow Day- Classes were canceled and so were Shadowing Hours.
• 2.14.2014-Introducing Site Manager Responsibilities