Purdue RxA

For this capstone professional writing class, ENGL 515, we have been assigned a normal project with a unique twist, which makes the project more realistic. This semester, we were supposed to write five to six blogposts, which is a common writing task assigned to students on multiple levels of education. Usually when teachers or professors assign a blog post or a discussion post, it is supposedly for a community or audience of at least peers, but what typically happens is that students read the prompt or question and only interact with the posts of their peers if it is required. For the 515 blog, that is not the case. This assignment is vastly different from a short-essay answer on a discussion forum or website. This group blog on Blogger acts as both an assessment and a teaching tool. It is what Bruce Frey refers to as an Authentic Classroom Assessment: "a classroom assessment task that involves the student deeply, both in terms of cognitive complexity and intrinsic interest, and ...

In the past year, education has changed for everyone. From the professors, teachers, and administrators who create the educational environment to the students who participate in it, no one is getting the same experience as they did before 2020. Purdue is no exception and now has even more reason (and video posts) to say their favorite term, "Purdue grit," this year than in the previous years. What one might be curious to see is what students are actually getting out of this wildly different educational setup. The short answer is that Purdue students are getting what everyone else is–a crash course in adapting and how to use Zoom. But if we look at the silver lining of this season of COVID school, we may find that we are gaining valuable skills that we might not have been able (or forced) to learn in our ordinary educational contexts. The first and most obvious adjustment to my Purdue courses this year was that the normal course structure was ripped away. At least in the liber...

To me, professional writing is a set of reading, writing, analytical, and 21st century skills paired with an attitude of adaptability that make a person adept at communicating in the work place and producing content. For me, professional writing is a set of added skills to my future teaching career. It is also versatility to my degree so that I can switch into another field if I don't want to teach my entire career. It is an undergraduate degree with a variety of graduate degrees available for the stacking. Professional writing brings opportunity to me by providing flexibility in my academic and professional career. After taking 306 and starting off this semester in 515, I have added the ideas of advocacy and user experience to what professional writing means to me. Professional writers can advocate for the business they work for, their clientele, or both. Professional writers have the ability to communicate and should use that ability to speak on behalf of those who need their vo...

At the beginning of this class, we were assigned readings and videos about airports in order to conceptualize the main theme of the course, experience architecture. Experience architecture is the design of spaces (architecture) for users (experience), such as an airport. In de Botton's work, "A Week at the Airport," de Botton addresses a doubt about experience architecture that sheds light on the scope in which the concept applies. "Standing before costly objects of technological beauty, we may be tempted to reject the possibility of awe, for fear that we could grow stupid through admiration...[and] yet to refuse to be awed at all might in the end be merely another kind of foolishness. In a world full of a chaos and irregularity, the terminal seemed a worthy and intriguing refuge of elegance and logic." (de Botton, 2009, p. 3-4). Simply put, experience architecture is design that is meant for the experience of the user. De Botton communicates this through an exp...

For this capstone writing course, we were asked to put together a team of 3 or 4 classmates in which we would design materials that could be used for user-testing and then make a report about whatever we are testing. My group has four people, and we plan to analyze three different website-building tools: Wix, Weebly, and WordPress–the three "w's" of amateur website building. Each member is responsible for learning about one of the aforementioned website-building tools and the fourth member is responsible for bringing in information about website building in general. This is an especially important piece because the fourth member's general knowledge will help us other three members to have a standard to compare our respective sites to, rather than simply comparing three tools to each other. In other words, the general knowledge and research for website-building tools gives context to what the other three of us (who are analyzing specific sites) should look for. For th...

Everyone is familiar with the classic example of high-school group work where, typically, one or two students are forced to carry the weight of the team. Often times this group dynamic is frustrating for the students doing all of the work, and it does nothing to really benefit the students who are slacking off. In my experience, these groups have usually been predetermined, and therefore the dynamic is unavoidable. In high school, I have been a part of many dysfunctional groups that share some key characteristics. These groups usually lacked clear group roles or a clear purpose for the project, the project lacked structure, or nobody knew each other. These are all important aspects of having a healthy, well-balanced group. Clear group roles are important for allowing group members to know what exactly their expectations are. My first ever group project at Purdue was for a Chemistry lab. While we were not entirely functional, we did have group roles that worked for us. We assigned role...

Searching for jobs today can be difficult, especially with the ongoing pandemic. The future of technical writing is arguably changing, as we have discussed throughout class, and as soon-to-be graduates, it is important for us to remain diligent when assessing the future of technical writing positions. Here, I have researched more into the future of technical writing regarding AI, usability, and social media. One debate regarding the future of technical writing is whether or not traditional technical writers will be replaced by automated writing software. According to an article from Zoomin, automated writing programs are unable to entirely replace technical writers due to the nature of human communication; technical writers are necessary for analyzing the audience and tailoring content to that audience. Since automated writing is not able to replace writers yet, the article suggests that technical writers can use automation to help increase the value of their work. Bringing in automat...

Apple’s sense of design has spoiled us, which is (probably) a good thing. Throughout my life, I have consumed significant amounts of time using a variety of Apple Inc. products, including the iPod Nano (2008), iPod Touch (2010), iPhone 6 (2016), and MacBook (2015). I cannot say how much time I have spent with these over the years, but I can say that just today (it’s 6:00 p.m.) I have spent 2 hours and 32 minutes on my iPhone and 5 hours and 37 mi nutes on my MacBook. Th at’s 8 of my 10.5 waking hours spent using an Apple design. If that average was consistent to the past 10 years (and I cannot definitively say it is not), it would be roughly 30,000 hours on Apple devices. What has caused me to invest so much time in this brand? Good design. Apple prioritizes design in a way that other technology companies did not throughout the development of personal computers and smartphones. I would argue that Apple is still at the vanguard of technology development today. Their outerwear is clean a...

Despite surrounding us in every object that we own, encounter, and interact with, design is oftentimes an invisible sort of force. Good design generally directs the user without being overtly noticeable, which means that it is often easier for us to pick out elements of bad design—that is, we most often notice design when we’re frustrated or confused by it. However, when we feel these emotions, it is important to understand which aspect of a design has caused them. Sometimes the failure in design is not caused by the most obvious component; indeed, the design of a specific frustrating component may have been the best design available if there are external and unmalleable constraints that it had to work within. Noting which level a design fails at, then, will make addressing design concerns much more exact and relevant, as critiquing a specific frustration without addressing the wider problematic system brings about no progress. While perhaps not the most exciting topic, a strong exampl...

When COVID-19 hit, business and education industries were forced to move their processes online. As a result, Zoom scaled from 20 million to 300 million users practically overnight. This shift led to a $127 million increase in revenue over the span of a single quarter. Current reports have shown Zoom’s consumer base growth at 354% since March 2020. The question now is, how did Zoom actually manage to scale so quickly? Zoom defines its architecture as a video-first and cloud-native. They believe that by maintaining this video-first mindset they will be able to easily scale and keep their customers happy. Even back in 2019, Zoom was setting itself up for global expansion by partnering with several different software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies to help maintain their platform. This collection of SaaS companies includes AWS, Equinox, and Oracle. Their cloud-based architecture was paramount in their ability to scale when COVID-19 hit. Zoom’s underlying architecture utilizes the Scaling Vi...

The Internet as we know it is structured because of HTML, looks pretty because of CSS, and functions properly because of JavaScript. While this may be a somewhat basic view of web development as it exists today, these three components still reign king over any application or website built to be accessible over the Internet. Sure, there exist languages that generate HTML from a different set of syntax, but the goal of these tools is to make creating HTML easier, not to replace HTML altogether. And sure, most websites use some backend server to do most heavy calculations, but scripts are still needed on the website itself to communicate with this server and then properly display this information. It’s a testament to the principles of design and abstraction, then, that we are able to create websites through means other than writing lines of code on an otherwise blank text file—especially considering that every instruction on the computer must be rendered as binary at the end of the whole ...

The online multiplayer game, Among Us, took the quarantined world by storm. A year ago the game boasted under a hundred players. Today, the social deduction game has nearly 400,000 players in a given month. Players join the online game to play against their friends or randomly assigned players from the internet in a murder mystery free for all. At the start of a game, users are assigned the role of crewmate or imposter. Crewmates must complete mini tasks and identify the imposter who is running around murdering crewmates and avoiding detection. The game has proven to be incredibly successful, but how well does it stand up to user experience standards? Accessibility This game appears rather simplistic; however, there are a few major accessibility design flaws. The first of which is something that I personally would have never considered until I discussed the game with a friend. The primary objective of Among Us is to identify the imposter who is sneaking around and killing crewmates...

Before the pandemic began, I was able to easily clock in and out of my on-campus job by swiping my Purdue ID card. Now, however, I have to clock in online through One Purdue and the Employee Launchpad. I often do this from my phone via the mobile website. Frustration led me to choose One Purdue for my expert analysis because I was often unable to accomplish my task. The mobile website often failed by not loading or giving an error. The options shown on One Purdue were also inconsistent, and I often couldn’t locate the Employee Launchpad before my shift began, even though it is the only application I have ever consistently used. In response, I decided to analyze One Purdue’s desktop website. In my findings, I have found that the desktop website is only somewhat better than the mobile one. Beginning with One Purdue’s weaknesses, there is simply too much going on. All of One Purdue’s 73 applications are included under the “Most Popular” category with very little information to distinguish...

This Christmas, cherish your loved ones. I'm thankful for my family every day of the year, but I rarely ever actively think about my thankfulness for individual relatives. This year of hardships and trials has made me more grateful than ever for even the small things in my life like having a car, having food to eat, and having a house to call home. These are small things to me, but they can be massive things in other people's lives. I normally spend the fall season being thankful for the little things, but this year I've been exceptionally thankful for bigger things. I'm especially thankful for my family this year. My dad's mother — my grandmother — passed away in April this year after contracting the COVID-19 virus in her assisted living facility. I had not seen her since Christmas of 2019. I loved every moment I spent with her around the holidays last year, but I had no idea that would be the last time I got to see her. I was so heartbroken that I didn't even ...

BoilerKey—Purdue’s attempt at two-factor authentication. Not only was it not well-thought through, but ITaP also offered very little support for it, all while forcing it on all students and faculty on the same day. Typically, two-factor authentication is a very helpful feature. However, Purdue’s implementation of it has served to not only confuse students and faculty but also has reduced security in some ways. By using PIN,push, the complexity of your password is significantly hindered, from at least 8 letters/numbers/symbols down to only 4 numbers. In almost any other implementation of two-factor authentication, users have an app on their phones that generates six-digit one-time passwords. These are used in combination with your pre-existing password. When logging in, you enter your username and password like usual and then are prompted to enter the six-digit one-time password. This serves to add to the existing security. Although this is only anecdotal evidence, it seems to me like I...

This year was surely the most saddening Thanksgiving I've ever experienced. Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful for my family, friends, significant other, and most importantly our health. But this year's Thanksgiving dinner was incredibly depressing. A month before Thanksgiving, my mom decided that she would host this year at our house. This meant that my grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousin, great-aunt, and 2 second-cousins would come to our house for our annual dinner with my mom, my dad, and me. Everything changed suddenly when my grandfather, who has major health conditions, started feeling ill. Now, he generally feels ill all the time since he has problems with his heart and spends 100% of the year under a heated blanket. But he started to panic at the thought that it might be COVID. My mom consulted my dad and me to hear our thoughts on canceling Thanksgiving and insisting that everyone stay in their respective houses for the holiday. My dad stated that he was conce...

Playing around with the design capabilities of the Xbox Elite Series Controller is more fun for me than any video game. I have never been a big gamer. However, my roommate recently purchased the new Xbox Series X and wanted to demonstrate all its new features and capabilities. There are times in our apartment when the Engineering-Liberal Arts divide is prominent, and my boredom juxtaposed with his passion for frame rates, cross-platform compatibility, and processing power was definitely one of them. However, one aspect of the system did catch my attention: the controller that he purchased with it. I was fidgeting around with the toggles when, to my surprise, I accidentally pulled one out. At first, I thought I broke it, but then it was sucked right back in. I realized that every button and toggle on the controller is magnetically attached and detachable. My roommate showed me the controller’s case, and neatly organized into little compartments, were different types of toggles and butto...

I'm studying professional writing, but it's not what I plan to do in my future. Sure, I love writing as much as the next English major, but I don't intend to use my brief infatuation with technical writing as a career. I didn't even know that professional writing was an option for a major. Prior to attending Purdue, my dream was to study journalism. I wanted to be a journalist and both write my opinion as well as give current events. Purdue does not have a degree in journalism, so I opted for communication. When I began at Purdue in 2017, all I knew was that (according to my high school teachers) I had a talent for writing. I liked writing, and I hated all other subjects. After a semester of communication, I decided that wasn't the route I wanted to take. My classes bored me to no end, and my significant other at the time thought I ought to switch majors to something I felt more confident about. I spent hours researching different majors that I could switch to, and ...

In the past few years, the world has seen a huge rise in the sales and registrations of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), more commonly known as drones. At the beginning of 2018, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported more than one million UAS registrations in the United States alone. The applications of these systems go far and wide and have been used in very creative ways. These applications include hobby flying, emergency first response, mapping and surveying, photography, and even the not-so-legal application of flying drugs and other contraband into prisons and across borders. However, this post will focus on hobby flying and commercial photography. The main advantage of UAS is that they can do a lot of the same things that traditional manned aerial systems, or planes and helicopters, can. After the initial purchase price, they hardly require any additional spending, can be used for very fast response, and can go places that helicopters can’t, due to their relatively sma...

I evaluated Hulu as one part of my group’s final project, which is to examine multiple streaming services for usability concerns. Before this evaluation, all I really knew about Hulu was that it 1) wasn’t Netflix and 2) has ads. I only have access to Hulu because it came as a package with Spotify for students. That being said, I usually don’t browse through Hulu unless I’ve exhausted all of my other options trying to find a specific title. Since I didn’t know very much about it, I was pleasantly surprised by my findings. Here, I will share some of my observations about Hulu's content organization, playability, and accessibility. To start, Hulu’s content organization does some things well and some things not so well. Among the things that the service does well is allowing viewers to distinguish between movies and TV shows very quickly. To further this, once one of those options has been selected, viewers can narrow their search down by limiting the results to specific genres. Hulu m...

When I got to college, I was excited to get involved with all kinds of campus organizations. But during my freshman year, I struggled to find my “thing.” I tried a few different clubs, and although I built a great group of new friends, I still felt as though I was missing something. I wasn’t doing anything to beef up my resume, nor was I taking full advantage of what my campus offered. I came across Alpha Phi Omega by chance when I saw their callout information scribbled on the blackboard of my Spanish classroom. I was immediately convinced that this service organization was perfect for me. In the five semesters I’ve spent in Alpha Phi Omega, I’ve completed over 100 hours of service. Last semester I was even elected President of our chapter. Alpha Phi Omega is a national co-ed service fraternity that was founded on boy scouting principals and fulfills three main pillars: leadership, friendship, and, above all else, service. Although a fraternity, it runs more similarly to a club; the m...

  Disney+ did not officially launch until November 2019. At that point, streaming giants such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and HBO were already streaming giants, and Disney throwing its hat into the streaming ring was only advantageous because the company’s movie and TV collection are extremely popular. This basically guaranteed the site would be successful no matter how the interface looked. While the decision to copy a lot of the design off of other sites, especially Netflix, might seem like a good decision, Disney+ also should consider that there could be new users that are not accustomed to streaming services that are dipping their toe into the pool with Disney+ for the first time. Whether the reasons be financial or due to lack of interest in what the aforementioned sites have to offer, this group of users should be considered too. The design of Disney+ mirrors Netflix in many ways. The sites are closer to each other in terms of design than any other combination of streamin...

Ever since Disney+ launched a year ago, I have had an account on it. Although I use it less than other streaming sites, I was still pretty familiar with it when I completed an Expert Analysis on it a few weeks ago. One aspect that I focused on was how accessible Disney+ is and what they can do to improve their accessibility. I focused on three main aspects: closed captions, audio options, photo-sensitivity, and cultural sensitivity. Closed captions and audio options Disney+ does well with accessibility in regards to these two features. Since Disney+ is available in fourteen countries so far, the seventeen audio options and fourteen closed captions options ensure many more Disney+ users beyond just those who can speak only English can use and enjoy the enormous amount of content on the steaming service. Additionally, one of the audio options is “English [Audio Description]” which allows English-speaking but visually impaired users to participate in watching Disney content too. When a us...

Cybersecurity, although a newer industry, has grown rapidly in recent years. Most people can agree that it’s an important industry but couldn’t explain why exactly. Vague ideas of hackers in black hoods stealing credit card numbers may come to mind when the topic of cybersecurity or internet safety. This problem stems from the lack of easily digestible internet safety resources. There are very few accessible resources that exist to teach everyday users the best practices and policies in cybersecurity. Existing communication on cybersecurity's best practices and policy range from formal government policies to niche technology news outlets such as SC Media, The Hacker News, and AFCEA’s International Journal. The everyday user is not included in these audiences. Users who have no personal connection to what cybersecurity is and how it affects them are exceedingly unlikely to seek out information from cybersecurity company blogs, Homeland Security policy briefs, or niche magazines. Man...

Joan Didion once wrote, “It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.” This is often the nature of technological advancement—it is always changing, always evolving, and always attempting to improve upon itself for the benefit of society. If I were sent back in time to the year I was born, early 1999, I would struggle to adjust to the foreign reality, so far removed from the 21st century mindset I’m familiar with. But perhaps more definitively, if a woman of 21 years old in 1999 was sent forward to this year, 2020, that adjustment would likely be the more difficult of the two. My generation has grown up incrementally experiencing first-hand some of the most close-knit, remarkable series of developments in digitized technology the world has seen—and with that, we have also experienced a subsequently distinctive shift in the world itself. Though we are barely cognizant of it from day-to-day life alone, we have been living in the heart of another technological r...

I had never read much Native American literature until I enrolled in ENGL 352 this semester. Throughout the course, we have read, studied, and discussed several pieces of Native American literature ranging from poems to stories. The first several stories we read in class were typical stories one might expect to hear from an indigenous person: the oral traditions of how the world came to be and made up stories meant to teach the reader a lesson. These were interesting to me, but none of them caught my attention quite like "38" by Layli Long Soldier. "38" is a story (not a poem, as Long Soldier clearly states within her story) that is meant to take the reader back in time to the Dakota 38. The Dakota 38 was a historical event in which 38 Dakota men were hanged under the order of President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. The Dakota 38 was the result of the Sioux Uprising against the US government. Many people have never heard of the Dakota 38 because it is a piece of history ...