To recap the whole unit as whole, we broke the project up week by week and all gave ourselves a pat on the back. As we come to the end of our biggest project so far, it is easy to forget just how much we have all achieved. Personally, I have learnt a lot about the industry and personal growth within my chosen field. I have found a big interest in information architecture and am very much looking forward to elaborating on this interest in the future. I can’t predict what grade I will get at the end of it because some weeks were definitely better than others and it has not been an easy ride. Some subjects we worked on were a lot more challenging than others and writing about these has not been straightforward either. Having said this, with the last piece of the unit to accomplish being the business report, I am at least confident that I have not failed!
When writing a report, structuring it correctly is extremely important for consistency. It must read well with each point must flow on smoothly from the last. To practice this technique, I was put in a group with one of my peers and given a mock essay structure. The points were randomised and our task was to order these into what we thought to be most logical. Our mock essay was on the subject of Students’ Preferences for Food retailers on Campus. The disorganised sections were:
- Appendices: Surveys and interview transcripts
- Expansion of eating venues on campus in the last 5 years
- Data collection: Qualitative surveys and semi-structured interviews
- Summary
- Results: Semi-structured interviews
- Discussion: Preferences for each venue
- Aims and Objectives
- Recommendations: Students want healthier food retailers
- Results: Pilot Survey
- Overview of existing food retailers: union, library café, food hall
- Bibliography
When ordering these, I already had an inkling because of some previous research into business report writing. I pictured the structure featured on (insert link here) and could put a few in order straight off the bat. These included 1 – Summary, 2 – Aims and Objectives, 10 – Recommendations, 11 – Bibliography. With the beginning and end of the essay in place, we could now figure out what goes where, elsewhere. Our final ordering was:
- Summary
- Aims and Objectives
- Overview of existing food retailers: union, library café, food hall
- Expansion of eating venues on campus in the last 5 years
- Discussion: Preferences for each venue
- Appendices: Surveys and interview transcripts
- Data Collection: Qualitative surveys and semi-structured interviews
- Results: Pilot survey
- Results: Semi-structured interviews
- Recommendations: Students want healthier food retailers
- Bibliography
Unfortunately, I forgot to record the correct order that was relayed to us after the task, but there are a few points I do remember. Firstly, appendices define any data that relates to test or survey that was carried out. For example, if the results of a survey are best shown in the form of a pie chart, this data would go in the appendices section and may appear further down in the report after the recommendations but before the bibliography.
Following this exercise and staying in our same groups, we were each given 30 minutes to research a topic assigned to us by our tutor and compose an essay structure; our subject was biometric security. My partner and I already share a general interest in this area, so doing some quick research was not hard. Our final outcome was:
- Title
- Table of Contents
- Summary
- Overview of types of biometric security
- Advantages and disadvantages
- Case study
- Discuss case study
- Recommendations
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
Due to us not having any context for the report, this task was very open ended. We were not told what our target audience was or given any other insights into the purpose of the essay. It was difficult to decide what information to include because if it was to be shown to the CEO of a company who was looking to install biometric security, they may want more data to be included to show its potential effectiveness. On the other hand, if this is a research paper for a university, there would need to be more chances to reference external practitioners.
The rest of the week was spent structuring our own reports and creating our first drafts. I found this very difficult and struggled a lot with what to include. Having said this, I am not too concerned about this because it is my first time trying to write something like this. I find writing hard enough due to my recently diagnosed dyslexia, so I am giving myself time and leeway when it comes to reports. I will be writing a lot of reports in my career as User Experience Designer, and if there is any time and place for me to make mistakes to improve upon them, it is during my time in university.