OVERVIEW
This project was assigned in TECM 5185: Principles of Technical Communication. The assignment’s purpose was to introduce us to the research, planning, writing and editing processes of instructional writing. Our group of three was given an old Toshiba laptop computer and instructed to write an iFixit home page, troubleshooting guide, and five repair guides.
TASK
Initially, there were a few obstacles:
- The group had no prior experience with this type/age of computer.
- The laptop was missing random parts and did not power on.
- There were few YouTube videos or online articles to reference the repair process.
The project required a lot of trial and error to determine how to repair issues with the hardware. The laptop was so dated that there weren’t a lot of resources to assist us with our mission.
ACTION
There were several steps we took to succeed in this project:
- Determine common issues users often encounter and write a troubleshooting guide to help users diagnose and repair issues.
- Take extensive notes while navigating the five chosen repair processes.
- Capture high-quality pictures that represent the processes.
- Synthesize notes into Wiki format on iFixit’s website.
- Edit pictures in guides to include markers for reference.
- Edit instructions for clarity and concision.
- Include a home page that houses all five repair guides and the troubleshooting guide, along with device specifications and details.
The above steps took us several weeks to complete. Then, the iFixit writers reviewed our work, and eventually they deemed the guides satisfactory and published them to the iFixit website. Our team worked wonderfully well together, and we were very proud of our first grad school group project.
RESULTS
Here are the links to our seven iFixit pages for the Toshiba Satellite P105-S6147 laptop:
Morgan Sharp 