WordPress Blog 5:
In 300 words or less, discuss how you worked toward some or all of the following learning objectives, indicating what coursework was involved (reading, assigned videos, discussion, class activities, assignments, or other). Close by pointing to how this coursework will build toward work you anticipate in your academic/professional career.
By the end of the semester students will:
- be able to identify and apply basic design principles
- know how to evaluate the effectiveness of a document’s overall design for a particular rhetorical situation
- develop strategies for integrating visual and written communication in ways that are attentive to the needs of a given audience and purpose
- become familiar with research on design, usability, and visual communication
- become comfortable designing and producing a variety of document types according to conventions of the relevant genre
- become familiar with the design process from beginning to end.
This course has allowed me to expand my horizons and comfort zones in areas that I, as a Creative Writing concentration in English BA and an Applied Linguistics MA student, was rather unfamiliar with. Through the readings and particularly the Infographic Project and the final Client Project, I am able to identify both in theory and in practice basic design principles and tools that are available to help curate a specific rhetorical design. This was a foundation that allowed me to become familiar with how design principles are heavily guided by usability and genre, which was highlighted in the conversion experience in the User Manual project. Even the importance of usability testing was especially highlighted to me by many activities in class, including the Lego activity. Overall this course has taught me new and valuable design principle that transcend common ideas of document design and I can see it aiding me in my graduate career as I work to design research studies and papers.