The board is marked with the Tx/Rx and GND for the pins
Try this link for more info:
http://elinux.org/Parallella_UART_ConnectionIf you use Putty.exe - when you open the app, select the Serial option on the Session tab.
The only complexity is working out which com port the USB is on - this usually shows up when you plug it in in the system messages.
set the com port (COM4) and the Speed (115200) and click open - this should open a terminal window and hitting enter will give you a prompt. (if the board is working)
If not - reset the board and see what messages come up.
If you boot the board without the SD card, the terminal will show the boot messages followed by the zynq-uboot> prompt.
If you use an SD card you should get a bevvy of start up messages starting with loading the parallella.bit.bin file, then loading the uImage, finally followed by the root@linaro-nano:~# prompt