Review of Meadow's Technical Re-write

It has been interesting to read other people's re-write of the miserably awful instructions we were given in class. All of those I have read are miles better than the originals. Kudos to you all for deciphering such an example of engineerese.

I will comment on Meadow Nelson's re-write because she has chosen to use screenshots to enhance the instructions. What's more, she has used them effectively. I have seen too many documents filled to the brim with big pictures that don't help. Meadow's use of these graphics is tight, relevant and useful.

Furthermore, her language was clear, such as "This will bring up a drop-down menu" and "A popup box will appear". Minor details that help keep the reader from becoming lost.

There were a few things I would suggest changes to, however. In a few places where the language needs to be re-thought. The phrase "User system is on Windows 95 platform" might be clearer written as "User's computer is running Windows 95". Also, the formatting makes it difficult at times to spot the next step. More use of white space would probably clear up this issue (most easily seen at step 3).

I would also like to mention Karina's and Daniel Stortz's take on this. They both used a very effective method of pointing out vital information. They bolded certain terms to make them stand out. That makes the document much more readable.

Michael Sasser