I Am A Lousy Instructor

[crokett]

If I were to write a manual on washing clothes, it would go something like:

1. Put the clothes in the washer
2. Add soap.
3. Turn washer on.

Then I would get annoyed when you come back to ask how much soap, hot or cold, heavy or light cycle, etc.

This is sometimes a problem because I've been doing my current long enough that a lot of what I do I don't think about and I sometimes think everybody who has a similar job knows it. So I gave a customer some commands to run yesterday and left out 2 that were obvious to me but apparently not to him.

[sscherin]

When I write out instructions I assume they will be followed by your average 5 year old.
Nothing is obvious.. The user has no common sense and lacks the ability to read labels, signs or warnings.

[crokett]

When I write out instructions I assume they will be followed by your average 5 year old.
Nothing is obvious.. The user has no common sense and lacks the ability to read labels, signs or warnings.

Right. That is why I sometimes get myself into trouble. I am getting better though. I've at least trained my family to stop asking me how to do things.

[Richard in Smithville]

As a QA auditor, I look at work instructions like I am a five year old child. That's why I always get the sensative areas to audit. I manage to root out most of the problems.

[jackellis]

What's obvious or intuitive to some is totally obscure to others. I used to work in a customer support role and learned quickly to walk folks through troubleshooting questions step by step. today when my wife asks for remote tech support, I make sure I'm pointing, clicking and typing the same things she is so there's no ambiguity and no doubt (and no divorce either ).

[Rich P]

Just remember, the real problem is usually somewhere between the chair seat and the keyboard...

[Lee4847]

That is a "PICNIC"
Problem In Chair Not In Computer

Lee

[crokett]

That is a "PICNIC"
Problem In Chair Not In Computer

Lee

I always thought it was "PIBKAC" - Problem Is Between Keyboard And Chair

Ran into that last week. I've spent the last 4 days repeating myself on why things went sproing. PIBKAC was why. They finally accepted it today then asked for it in writing. I forwarded them the note I sent to them last week....

I wish there was a *sigh* smiley.

[Kristofor]

Something north of 50% of the people I had to deal with on the phone in college didn't know what a backslash was so I would always explain it. "type C colon backslash, that's the one above the enter key, not on the questionmark key, etc...".

I doesn't bother me to need to explain stuff like that. My problem is when they then ignore it and use the forward slash instead...

When dealing with documentation from a vendor I would expect either complete instructions (no missing steps) for standard activites/functions or such generalized instructions like "repartition the drive into 2 equal partitions" with no command's/details if it were a basic simple task. If there were some unique set of switches on just one or two commands then perhaps a mix of the two, with it being general with only those "oddball" commands called out.

[BobSch]

Having done technical writing, course development, training and support, I think I've pretty much gotten over expecting that the target audience to know anything more than their name. (And sometimes not even that! Tell a group to put just their first name on their nametags and see what happens...)

[Tom Slick]

You have to write/engineer for the lowest common denominator. Think about military training manuals.

I just finished a big project that dealt with writing instructional materials. I thought I covered everything but when I tested the instructions in a small group I missed three critical areas of assembling the parts.

[Alex Franke]

This is sometimes a problem because I've been doing my current long enough that a lot of what I do I don't think about and I sometimes think everybody who has a similar job knows it. So I gave a customer some commands to run yesterday and left out 2 that were obvious to me but apparently not to him.

Not everyone took the red pill, crokett.

[MilDoc]

I learned these rules as a Prof:

#1 - KISS

# 2 - if you don't think a step needs to be explained, explain it

# 3 - all instructions at a 5th grade English level