alignment gridthis grid may help W r i t i n g

Scenario

You are working with New Hampshire Microbrewery (NHM), which has decided to strengthen its market share of nonalcoholic carbonated beverages; its current lineup includes the earthy and refreshing tastes of root beer, birch beer, and cream soda. The business began in 2015 and has become profitable in the past year. It has just installed new bottling equipment and is hoping to develop a set of documents that will help distributors describe its products to purchasers, including restaurants and bars, and on promotional materials. Your responsibility is to assess the documents created by professional technical writing consultants in order to determine whether they align to project goals and stakeholder requirements. Additionally, you will provide feedback for ways the communications can be improved and create an informal plan for usability testing.

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Directions

The technical writing consultants have provided you with their project plan as well as six technical communications. They anxiously await your feedback on any elements that need to align better with stakeholder requirements and the project goals you agreed on.

• Explain why each technical communication (including the project plan) is aligned or not aligned to stakeholder requirements and project goals.
  • Which documents, due to their function/purpose, don’t need to be aligned?
  • Which documents aren’t aligned and need feedback?
  • Which aspects of the goal or requirement aren’t met (e.g., just one adjective, missed the entire point)?

• Elaborate on specific feedback for technical communications (including the project plan) that do not align to project goals or stakeholder requirements.
  • How can you give specific feedback that accomplishes the following?
    • Clearly leads the editor to make specific changes
    • Doesn’t itself change the text
  • How can you show the technical communication doesn’t align to goals or requirements?

• Define audiences for usability testing and feedback based on each technical communication’s purpose.
  • For each document, which audiences are necessary for usability testing?
    • Who is the intended audience?
    • Which audiences are not the main audience for the document itself but are imperative to garnering useful feedback?

• Explain the rationale for specific methods of usability testing and feedback based on the technical communication audience and purpose.
  • Which specific methods of testing are best for each technical communication?
  • Why are these methods best?
    • How does this method align to the purpose of the technical communication?
    • How does the type of feedback best suit stakeholder needs?

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What to Submit

Assessment
In your 3- to 5-page assessment of the provided documents, include your recommendations for improvement and an informal plan for usability testing.

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Supporting Materials

The following resource(s) may help support your work on the project:

Document: NHM Technical Communications
These documents were created by the technical writing professional consultants for NHM.

Document: Alignment Grid
This grid may help in organizing your decisions about the alignment of technical communications. Additionally, it may aid in your thinking about which documents need (or don’t need) alignment to certain project goals or stakeholder requirements.

Citation Help
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