We DESIGN, EVALUATE, and IMPROVE educational, instructional, and training materials, assembly instructions, technical manuals, schematics, and operational materials.
Typically, any initiated
or completed work we receive from a customer is first evaluated.
We look at several factors such as the overall appearance and layout of the
material and how different parts complement each other.
We also assess the level of effectiveness and suitability of the work for its
target audience.
A list of recommended improvements is then compiled.
Improvements for instructional work are intended to make the material user-friendlier
and more understandable.
Here are some items and actions that we do to improve an existing work:
AMENDMENTS: These are corrections made due to clear mistakes or errors.
We recommend that the final proofreader of any technical or instructional work is a person who is not very closely associated with that work but who understands the technical side of the material.
ORGANIZATION:
Clutter can seriously reduce the effectiveness of any instructional work.
The layout of the text and other info (pictures, formulas, and graphs) should
be carefully planned to prevent confusion.
SIMPLIFY:
The best kind of instructional material should be clear and concise. Too often
technical writers and authors manage to make simple concepts look like rather
complicated ones. It is important writers to possess the ability to break
down (simplify) complex topics or concepts to their fundamental parts.
Sometimes it is necessary to simplify the language. Particularly engineers,
who write instructional material, have tendency to overestimate the level of
technical background of their intended audience.
The result can be a work full of technical jargon that makes the material very
difficult to understand.
SUMMARY: An excellent instructional work should have at the end of each chapter a well-designed summary paragraph that highlights all the pertinent topics in that chapter.
SUPPLEMENTS:
There are of course limits how concisely one can explain instructions and other
technical concepts. It is always good idea to
include additional explanations to the topics that are ambiguous.
If a new topic requires a foundation from the previous studies, a small review
of the critical areas can make big difference in understanding of that topic.
In some cases, this review can be as short as one sentence and/or one small
illustration.
A good writer should maintain proper balance between text and supported materials
such as pictures, diagrams, and graphs.
Generally, the more illustrations are included in the work the
easier it is to study and understand the subject matter or the concept.
Here is an example
how to improve and simplify schematics. In this example, click the link
---> Boeing 727 Electrical Power
Distribution Schematic is been used to demonstrate how few simple modifications
can make a big difference in the level of clarity and understanding.
We also recommend you to visit our Visualization Techniques site where we demonstrate various techniques to simplify abstract science concepts. In our example we show how to simplify and improve the understanding of transistors by using many visualization and other instructional techniques.