instruction assignment final version

8/14/2019 Instruction Assignment Final Version

1/15

How to Construct a Suburban House

Ioulia TrouskovaWRIT 3562W: Technical andProfessional Writing


2/15

2

Table of Contents

Introduction..........................................................................................................................................................3-5

Equipment and materials needed ..................................................................................................................... 3

Downloading instructions .................................................................................................................................. 3

Basic Navigation and use ................................................................................................................................4-5

-Selecting, rotating, and inserting bricks4

-Changing angle/point of view..4

- Moving and copying bricks ..5

- Deleting bricks5

Visual summary of tools/palettes5

Instructions on constructing the Suburban House.6-13

List of construction materials .6

Procedure steps.7-13

-Foundation..7-9

-Roof.10

-Decorations11-13

Appendix...14-15


3/15

3

INTRODUCTION

Audience and Purpose of this manual:This manual tells you how to construct the Suburban House online using Lego Digital Designer (Version 1.6)

and is intended for college students who know how to use a computer.

Equipment and materials needed:The materials needed in order to construct a Suburban House include a computer that is connected to theinternet and access to the Lego website, where you will need to download the Lego Digital Designer program forfree.

Installing the Lego Digital Designer Program:In order to find and install the program follow the following instructions:

1. Go tohttp://ldd.lego.com/download/archive.aspx2. Click on either of the two options offered located above the picture: Mac or PC3. Follow subsequent directions to download the program.
http://ldd.lego.com/download/archive.aspxhttp://ldd.lego.com/download/archive.aspxhttp://ldd.lego.com/download/archive.aspxhttp://ldd.lego.com/download/archive.aspx


4/15

4

BASICS OF NAVIGATION AND USESelecting Bricks:In order to select a specific brick, go to the Brick Palette located on the right side of the screen and select theneeded brick by clicking on it once. To select a different kind of brick, go to the Category Palette on the rightside (above the Brick Palette) and select the type of brick you want by clicking on it once. The bricks for that

type of brick will appear in the Brick Palette.

Category Palette

Rotating and inserting Bricks:In order to rotate brick, you can use the arrow keys on the keypad. To place the brick on the baseplate, simplyclick on the brick icon again at the spot where you want to place it at.

Changing the Point of View of the Model:To see the model you are constructing from a different angle/point of view, use the CameraGadget located on the bottom left corner of the screen. Simply press on the arrows when youneed to look at the model from a different angle. Using this gadget, you can also zoom in orzoom out by clicking on the +/- sign. If you prefer to use your keypad, the numbers 8, 4, 6,and 2 are used to change the point of view, while the + andsigns are used to zoom in and

zoom out, respectively.

Moving Bricks:To move bricks that have been placed on the baseplate, click on theSelection Tool located on the left side of the screen that has an arrow on it.After clicking on the Selection Tool, click on a brick in your model to move

it. You can use this tool to move one brick at a time. To move more than one brick at once, read below:

1. Moving more than one Brick at once: Click on the yellow arrow to the right of the Selection ToolSelectthe arrow with a plus signclick on the bricks that you want to move.

2. Moving a group of connected Bricks at once: Click on the yellow arrow to the right of the SelectionTool Select the arrow with an asterisk click on the group of connected bricks you want to move.

3. Moving bricks of the same color at once: Click on the yellow arrow to the right of the SelectionToolSelect the arrow with a can (fourth from the left)click on a brick that has the color that youwant to move.

4. Moving bricks of the same design at once: Click on the yellow arrow to the right of the SelectionToolSelect the arrow with a box (fifth from the left)click on a brick that has the design that you wantto move.

Number 8 UpNumber 4 LeftNumber 6 RightNumber 2 Down

Brick Palette

Camera Gadget


5/15


6/15

6

INSTRUCTIONSList of Materials needed to construct the Suburban House:In order to construct the Suburban House model, you will need different types of blocks. Keep in mind that all

these blocks can be selected from the Brick Palette using the Category Palette.

Total Number of Blocks Needed: 117

Basic Bricks:

-41 reddish brown bricks (2x2)-2 dark red bricks (1x2)-8 white bricks (1x8)Tiles:

- 5 black flat tiles (2x2)- 31 reddish brown flat tile- 1 bright red flat tile (2x2)- 16 bright yellow radiator grilles (1x2)Decorations:

-8 white fences (1x4x2)-3 dark green spruce trees-2 medium stone grey shutters (2x3)


7/15

7

Procedure Steps to Construct the Suburban House:Building the Foundation:

1. Click on the Star icon to start a new model.2. Press the upward yellow arrow located on the bottom left three times to change the view of your mode to

a one dimensional view. This will make placing the bricks easier. See figure 1 below.

Fig. 1

3. Select Basic Bricks from category palette Select the reddish brown brick (2x2). See fig. 2 for location.Place the brick in the middle of the plane.NOTE: Placing each brick in a square will make constructing this model easier.

Fig. 2

Basic Bricks

Reddish brown

brick (2x2)


8/15

8

4. Place a total of11 reddish brown bricks to form the structure shown in Fig.3NOTE: You can use the clone tool to copy the bricks.

Fig. 3

5. Select Tiles select black flat tiles (looks grey/dark blue).Fill the inside of the formed structure with the black tiles as shown in fig.4.

Fig 4.

Tiles

Black tile

Clone tool


9/15

9

6. NOTE: Use the selection tool to select a group of bricks all at once.Select a group of the reddish brown bricks all at once as shown in Fig. 5Notice that one of the reddish brown bricks is notselected.

Fig. 5

7. NOTE: Change the view of the model so that it is no longer one dimensional before doing the next step.Changing the view will make the step easier.

**Copy the selected bricks and superimpose the copied structure on top of the original structure. You

may find using the clone and selection tool useful at this point.

8. Repeat steps 7-8 TWO more times.Now you should have a foundation that is threebricks tall. It should look like this (Fig. 6):

Fig 6.

Selection Tool to select

a group of bricks.


10/15

10

Constructing a Roof:9. Select Basic Bricks from the category palette select white brick (1x8).

Move the white brick on top of the formed model to form a roof as shown in Fig. 7.

NOTE: You will need to use 8 white bricks.

Fig 7.

11.Select Tiles from the category palette select reddish brown flat tiles (1x2).Cover the white roof with reddish brown flat tiles (1x2). Make sure to leave an opening for the chimneyanywhere in the middle section of the roof (Fig. 8).

HINT: Use the Clone tool and Selection Tool to make the process faster.

Fig. 8

12.Select Basic Bricks from the category palette select bright red brick (1x2).Place two bright red bricks (1x2) on top of each other in the opening you left in step 11.NOTE: Rotate the bricks to fit into the chimney space.


11/15

11

Adding Decorations to the house:

13.Select Tiles from the category paletteselect flat bright red tile (2x2)Place one flat bright red tile (2x2) inside the window opening as shown in fig. 9.WARNING: Be careful to not mistake the door opening for the window opening. The window opening

is shown with a red circle in fig. 9its smaller than the door and does not go all the way down to theground.

Fig. 9

14.Select Tiles from the category paletteselect bright yellow radiator grille (1x2)Place the grille in front of the door opening (4x4) as shown in Fig. 10.

NOTE: You will need 16 bright yellow radiator grilles.

Fig 10.


12/15

12

15.Select Decorations from the category palette (location is shown below) select medium stone greyshutter (2x3)Place twoshutters on the wall oppositethe door as shown in Fig 11:

Fig. 11

16.Select Decorations from the category palette select white fence (1x4x2)Put four fences on each of the two sides of the house as shown in Fig. 12

Fig. 12

Decorations icon


13/15

13

17.Select Decorations from the category palette select dark green spruce tree.Place one spruce tree at 3 corners of the house (three trees total) as shown in fig. 13.

Fig. 13

18.Congratulations! You have finished building a SuburbanHouse!


14/15

14

APPENDIXTo Anthony ArrigoFrom Ioulia TrouskovaDate February 20th, 2008Subject Results and description of user testing of How to Construct a Suburban House user manualI have completed the user testing of the instructions used to construct a virtual suburban house using the Lego

Digital Designer (Version 1.6). User testing was conducted to observe the effectiveness of the written

instructions for constructing a virtual suburban house. The goal of user testing was to reveal possible missing or

confusing steps and errors in language usability. Two user testings showed that the instructions showed flaws in

language use and also flaws in step descriptions.

Description of User testingThe two users who tested the instructions were college students, both 21 years old. The testing was done at my

home, using my computer and the already downloaded Lego Designer program. The time at which both user testswere conducted was at ten oclock in the morning when the users were more likely to be awake, not too full, nor

too hungry. This ensured that there was little room for error. The two user testings were conducted on February

15 and 18.

The tests were conducted by providing the two college students with a computer and access to the Lego Design

application. The two users were provided with printed instructions and both performed these instructions in a

quiet room, where there were no distractions of any sort. I sat behind the user and took notes while the user was

building the Lego model. After each user was done constructing the model, I asked each one open-ended

question about the clarity of the instructions, suggestions about how to improve the instructions, and problems

they encountered as they built the model.

Results and Changes MadeAs a result of the two user tests, I learned that my instructions were not detailed enough in their procedure steps.

Lack of detail was mainly due to the fact that I did not use many figures to show exactly what I meant by specific

steps. Therefore, as a result of the user tests, I added more figures to my instructions in hopes of clarifying many

of my steps. For instance, after the first user tester tested my instructions, she suggested to add figure 1 to showthe user what exactly I meant by a one-dimensional view of the platform. After this change was made, the

second user tester did not have trouble comprehending what I meant in the respective step.

In addition, one of the users recommended that I outline the bricks and the fence in fig. 3 and fig.12,respectively, to help the user see how the bricks and fence fit in the model and how many are needed on each side.

Describing this would have been difficult and too wordy. Providing a more detailed figure clarified and

simplified respective steps.

Another change that was made as a result of user testing feedback was simplifying procedure steps by creating

arrows that would indicate next moves. In other words, instead of writing the black tiles can be found in the

Tiles section of the Category Palette, I wrote Select Tiles select black flat tiles (looks grey/dark blue).


15/15

15

Ioulia I. Trouskova February 20th, 2009

Furthermore, I bolded the materials mentioned in each step to make them stand out and to help the user find

them quickly if they were to forget what material they need. The addition of this change made it less likely

for users to go back to the step to find the materials they need. Bolding the words seemed to enhance the

users memory of needed materials for each step.

Lastly, I added NOTE before step 7 because having it after the actual step proved to be useless since it was

too late in the procedure step.

Please take the time to review the instruction manual provided and tell me what you think of it. I open to

any recommendations that you may have.

instruction assignment final version

Documents