Guidelines

• Choose something you are very familiar with. It can be something related to your field of study (e.g. how to use a particular piece of laboratory equipment), or something related to a more general audience (e.g. how to learn to juggle).
• Ideally, your audience should be someone who has never performed this task before.
• Your audience should have a general understanding of the topic area.
• Choose a task with an appropriate level of difficulty--neither too easy nor too hard to explain in the space allotted.
• The task may involve a device: assembling it, operating it, or fixing it. Or it may involve some process (e.g., registering using eLion).
• The process should have discrete parts or steps that are fairly easy to name and refer to.

How to upload a large file to your web space and link to it from your blog.  Blogs@psu has a limit of 50M for a single file.

Note:  If you want to post a large file on your blog (a large podcast, for example), you need to upload it to your web space using a different tool, then link to the file in a new entry. This would include adding a video that exceeds the time limitations on Youtube to your personal space and redirecting it to your blog.

Connect your blog to your Flickr account to automatically post pictures your psu blog via email on your mobile phone.

Note: The connection information on configuring a third party service/client to work with blogs@psu is here: http://kb.its.psu.edu/article/762

Add your blog feed to twitterfeed so new posts automatically 

get tweeted.

Post to blogs@psu directly from word.

Changing the color of your blog background

Changing the font style of blog headings

Removing the main sidebar and expanding the container space

Renaming the blog tab

Embedding a media player (needs to be completed)

Customizing the blog space footer

Adding a banner to every page

Creating subfolders in the sidebar folder widget



Composing a blog entry in a word doc and eliminating the 

gibberish on your home page



Creating a link to move to the top of the page

 

Come up with a project linking your blog site to Facebook

What your Introduction Should Include:

• An overview of the steps needed to complete the task
• Definitions of terms or concepts they need to know before they proceed
• Cautions or warnings that apply to the task as a whole
• A sense of how long the task will take
• Where they should perform the task  

Additional Guidelines for Designing an Instruction Set:

• Make sure you use the imperative mood. ("Attach the red wire.")
• Phrase each step clearly and concisely.
• Provide "feedback" that informs the reader what will happen after they complete each step.
• Include warnings or cautions before readers will encounter problems.
• Break long lists into sections with appropriate sub-headings.
• Make sure sub-headings and steps are phrased in parallel form.   
• Include troubleshooting tips.
• Provide a glossary of key terms and definitions.

What your Design Should Include:

• A clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings.
• Well-chosen fonts. For print documents, sans-serif fonts are usually best for headings; serif fonts are best for body text. (For online documents, the reverse is true.)
• Numbered lists and bulleted lists, where appropriate.  Know the difference. Make sure bullets and numbering are consistently formatted. Do not number or bullet lists with fewer than two items.
• An appropriate amount of white space--neither too much nor too little.
• Effective use of alignment. Centered alignment may make it harder for users to skim headings and sub-headings; left alignment or indentations can be more effective for this.
• Effective use of contrast. Too much contrast means that nothing stands out; too little makes it hard for users to find what they need. Consider emphasizing elements like headings, key words, and warnings.
• Consistently used design features. Decide which fonts, font sizes, and forms of emphasis you will use and apply them consistently.
• Length should be about 2 pages single-spaced.