In my 6 step manual I wanted to teach people the technically correct way to say Plantain. I chose this topic because I’ve been in lots of arguments about this, so clearly it is a misunderstanding that needs to somehow be resolved. One of the guidelines to this assignment was that we were not allowed to use text in our directions. Given that my tutorial concerned the pronunciation of a word, I had a big problem to solve.
I thought I could find a solution through universal icons (such as a red octagon to mean stop, or a magnifying glass to mean search). But this then brought up the issue of my drawing and photoshop capabilities. In which media will I achieve both aesthetic satisfaction as well as fully comprehensive instructions. I decided to draw it. Bad call on my part. This choice led to ruinous misunderstandings for the manual users.
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- searching correct pronunciation
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- deciphering instructions
the meaning of the 6th step was often confusing for folks which caused difficulties with the following step. Wifi proved to be an unanticipated issue, as did the mental block that personal beliefs and previous knowledge can sometimes cause.
