To:

Donald Guerrieri
Glencoe Accounting Author
From:
Laith Abughaush
Petroleum Engineering Student
Date:
April 16, 2016
Sub: A proposal to create a student manual for chapters three and four of
Glencoe Accounting
First-Year Course Real-World Applications &
Connections
My name is Laith Abughaush, and I am a Petroleum engineering freshman at
Texas A&M University at Qatar. In my Technical and Business Writing course,
we were assigned to do a usability test on a text of our choosing, and I chose
Glencoe Accounting Book First-Year Course Real-World Applications &
Connections.
During my senior year of high school at Global Academy International,
Accounting was one of the main core courses. Students had to refer back to
the book for additional information or to solve certain problems. After
conducting several interviews with students, I came to the conclusion that
the text either included too many details or unrelateable examples, since
most of the students using the book do not live or are not from the United
States. Therefore, I propose a manual to be created that will accompany the
Glencoe Book. In order to tell whether a manual is important or not, I made a
usability test on a piloted student manual.
The purpose behind this usability test is to scrutinize whether the Glencoe
book would be more useful if a accompanied by a manual. I want to show to
you, Mr. Guerrieri, as one of the authors of Glencoe Accounting book that a
different approach in using the book could result in a different outcome. The
goal of creating a student manual is for the students to gain better grades
and have a strong base in accounting. The usability test I conducted targeted
two audiences: the students who are going to use the book in the future, and
especially the authors and publishers of the book.
The usability test was performed in three locations:
My house
In Texas A&M University at Qatar campus (library and computer labs
202G and 213F)
Global Academy International High School
Chapters 3 and 4 from the Accounting book were used as a sample since
they are not complicated or do not require practice to learn. The chapters
were simplified to make a proposed student manual. The usability test
participants were divided into three groups:
Group 1: students who are currently using the book
Group 2 students who used the book in the past
Group 3: students who did not use the book before

After completing the usability test, the three parties filled in surveys. The
results from the usability test that I am reporting on will not only help you,
the authors of Glencoe Accounting, produce a student manual that is easier
for students to refer to, but it might as well increase the sales and revenue of
the next editions of Glencoe Accounting Book First-Year Course Real-World
Applications & Connections.
Thank you very much for your time, and I hope that you consider my
proposal to create a manual that will accompany the next editions of
Glencoe Accounting Book First-Year Course Real-World Applications &
Connections.