shannonlucas / ptw320-beta

Project Beta for UW PTW 320 Spring 2022 quarter

PTW 320 Project Beta

This was the second team project for PTW 320 (Intermediate Technical Writing) at the University of Washington in Spring of 2022.

Team members and roles:

• Shannon L. (writer) performed the audience analysis and wrote the project proposal and content.
• Jennifer B. (editor) provided all levels of editing during the project.
• Sarah H. (production specialist) built the final deliverable and provided additional editing support.

Project plan

Context

Cameras with interchangeable lenses offer three primary settings that affect how a photograph is exposed when the shutter button is pressed. These are aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (or sensitivity) and are often referred to collectively as the “exposure triangle.” Each setting impacts the brightness of a photograph while also providing its own unique impact.

• Aperture constrains how much light reaches the camera’s sensor. It impacts whether or not objects in the distance are in focus. This setting is responsible for the blurred backgrounds common in portraits.
• Shutter speed determines how long, in fractions of a second, that the camera sensor is exposed to light. Photographs of athletes frozen in motion used a higher shutter speed while those of blurred, flowing water used a lower shutter speed.
• ISO, or sensitivity, controls how the digital signal from the camera’s sensor gets amplified. At higher sensitivity, the camera will be able to take photographs with less light, but the trade off is noise in the signal. Photographs taken with higher sensitivity appear more coarse, or grainy.

Our project will focus on the aperture setting.

Audience analysis

The primary audience is owners of cameras with interchangeable lenses who have reached the point where they want to grow from taking pictures to using photography as a creative medium. They have gotten comfortable using the program-mode settings of the camera, and they have a general, but vague understanding of concepts like aperture and shutter speed. However, they aren't sure how these concepts impact the photographs they take.

Our primary audience has a need for clear explanations that they can quickly put to use. They are enthusiastic about taking pictures and are generally inquisitive. They are also motivated to get more value from their investment in the camera. However, they may experience some self-doubt when learning new skills if they compare their work to that of others.

The core competencies of our primary users include being able to operate a DSLR or mirrorless camera, having a basic understanding of how a camera works, and a willingness to experiment.

Our secondary users are owners of phones with advanced camera settings who want to understand those settings. They may wish to improve the content of their social media feeds or they may be exploring the idea of buying a dedicated camera. Their attitudes range from genuine interest to idle curiosity. Their core competency is familiarity with mobile apps and using a mobile phone or tablet for taking and editing pictures.

At a high level, our audience's desired outcome is to use photography as expression. One of the tasks to reach this goal is learning what effect aperture settings have on a photograph.

Instructional problem statement

To turn picture takers into photographers, we will provide interchangeable lens camera owners with a quick learning aid about their camera’s aperture setting so they can take better photographs.

Production details

The content was initially written in Google Docs and illustrations were created in Adobe Illustrator. Production then involved HTML, CSS and peer code reviews. Online web hosting was handled by GitHub Pages.