This week’s readings focused on creating technical information documents, including descriptions and directions. Many descriptions and instructions are poorly written and presented, and give somewhat of a negative connotation for all sets of technical documents. A common problem with creating a set of instructions or descriptions is that they are not user centered, they don’t take into account who will be using it, what there level of expertise is, why, when and where they will be using it, etc. Taking these variables into account is critically important when creating such a document.
I’ve seen my fair share of bad instructions, and they only lead to frustration and anger when you’re in a bind and need assistance. For example, I recently purchased a collapsible golf chip-shot practice net. The net came with a set of written instructions, with no pictures, for setting up and collapsing the net to fit back in its storage bag. I had a hard time figuring out how to fold the net such that it would fit back in the bag, so I consulted the instructions. They read verbatim, “Fold the rim in half. With the palm of your left hand facing out and your right hand facing in, grab the rim at opposite ends. Use your body to twist and create a third loop. Fold the rim into the third loop and place the net in the bag.” Obviously, these instructions offered little help. What does it mean to use my body? What are the first two loops? How do I fold the thing into this third loop? What should it look like when its done? After a good 15 minutes of twisting the rim every which way, I finally got the net back in the bag. The instructions should have allowed me to do that within 30 seconds. It seems the author of these instructions failed to observe actual users attempting to follow them.
Based on this example, and reiterated by the readings, I think one of the most important things to keep in mind when creating a set of instructions is that your readers will likely not have the knowledge and expertise that you have on that particular subject. It is hard to identify common mistakes and problems a new user will encounter. Every effort should be made to determine who the user likely is (an engineer, a construction worker, a dad on Christmas morning), and tailor the layout and tone of the document to fit their level of familiarity and the setting of their use.
Analysis
It seems to me that audience analysis is the single most important part of writing instructions of any form. Once you know who your main audience is likely to be it will make it easier to structure your document. It also seems important to do some sort of field test which is something that never really occurred to me. This is especially evident in your example. If the writer had tested their instructions they would have seen that they made absolutely no sense and needed to be rewritten.
Say What?
I know when I have to finally turn to directions to figure something out that it can get pretty frustrating when they do not help at all. Just because a set of instructions makes sense to the people who actually made or produced the product does not mean that it will make sense to the person putting the product together or using it. I know that throughout the last few years there have been several times when I have had to consult an instruction manual and have found myself having to read it through three or four times just to understand what exactly they are saying. All directions/instructions should not only just give details of their procedures, but also give pictures and explanations of how to successfully accomplish them.
Side effects of "The Curse of Knowledge"
Another problem with bad instructions
As you hit on in your response for this week, a problem with bad instructions, is that the inconsistencies can compound each other. If you can't figure out one step, you do your best and make a semi-educated guess and hope you got it right. On to the next step: "fold the rim into the third loop". Well if you don't know where the third loop is, how can you fold the rim there. And from this point you can't finish the next step or the next. All it takes is one poorly written step and the instructions become garbage. For all you know, if the one step was written better, the third loop may have become obvious, but because of that one step, you will never know.