MEMORANDUM

TO: FROM: DATE: SUBJECT: Dr. Gregory Monika Majewska January 21, 2013 Evaluation of effectiveness of the manual Beginners Guide to Going Wireless

The Beginners Guide to Going Wireless is a document informing the reader about the equipment required for wireless internet connection and the process of setting it up. It is written for individuals wanting to learn more about it by themselves. The audiences are individuals with an existing internet connection at home, who would like to find out how difficult it would be to move from a wired to a wireless connection. The document would benefit from improvements, which will be proposed below. Problems and Solutions The major positive aspect is that it is for free, which makes it very accessible to general public. The instructions are quite simple and fairly easy to read. For example the differences in WEP and WAP securities and which one was better, were well explained. The technical wording is well explained in the text. Sometimes the reader can also follow a link to find out more about some technical/scientific terms. The guide would benefit from more such links for example to learn more about 811 standards. No prior knowledge of wireless connection is required, but a basic idea of what internet is and how you access it in general, would be advantageous to the reader. For those who have no idea what to expect, the images help to visualize the process. More relevant images would be useful (an additional picture of the router switched on with all the lights on); some images could be removed (images of more than one or two wireless router). The more scientific section about radio waves is a good idea. However the section Are the wireless signals dangerous? might easily discourage some very health conscious readers to go wireless. This section should be removed from the Beginners Guide, and a link named Impact of Radio Waves on Human Body should be placed at the end of the Radio Waves section. The word dangerous has a negative undertone. By changing it to Impact of Radio Waves on Human Body, the reader will be more objective in assessing whether radio waves have a positive or negative impact on health or no impact at all. The document would benefit from proof reading to correct a few spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Currently, it is difficult to say how old the information is. It would be useful to add a statement like last updated 01/01/2013. This would help the reader to decide if the information is still relevant to him or not.

Conclusion In overall, the instructions were well organized and presented. The images helped to understand the process better. The relevance of the document is however in question. This document may have a significant value for younger audience, as an additional information for a school project, or underdeveloped countries where internet is still a novelty, but for majority of population living in Northern part of America and Europe this document is not as important due to many households have been provided with a wireless router and set up as part of the services they buy from their cable/internet provider.