Has this ever happened to you? Recently, I picked up a handbook describing what residents of an assisted living development should know about and found the section I was looking for in the table of contents. I leafed to the page, only to find a different topic on that page. Looking in the index was useless, because there was no reference to the topic. (At that, I was surprised that there even was an index.) Frustrating? Yes, but not unusual.
The same thing happened when I was studying my printer manual to troubleshoot a problem. And don't even get me started on the thick and totally incomprehensible manual that came with my new cell phone. Even the dumbed-down GPS instructions are sometimes hard to follow.
Lest you think this business communicator is not exactly Mensa material...well, maybe you're right that as a student, I'm a dope. But I've heard similar stories from too many others not to realize that this is a serious problem in communication-land. As business communicators—whether corporate, nonprofit or independent—our jobs sometimes entail writing instructions, directions or how-to information for our clients, coworkers and employers, or handbooks for students, employees and the like.
Is it possible for us to write clearly enough so that others will understand exactly what we mean and be able to follow our instructions? In a word, yes! Here are a few guidelines we should remember to use more often when writing instructions.
1. Write simply, clearly and without jargon. Chances are high that your readers won't understand the jargon and will give up trying to understand esoteric industry terms, even if they're the correct terms. You're better off identifying the red thingamajig as the red bar or the red wire than trying to use whatever its correct technical name is. Some engineering types won't appreciate that, but the rest of us will understand.
2. Try to relate your instructions to something your readers already know and understand. They'll both grasp and remember them better that way. For example, if you're telling your readers about the company's new and very technical unified communications system, start with the desk or cell phones with which they're already familiar. Refreshing people's memories will help them grasp new ideas and concepts. (I may never understand how my Kindle works, but I can use it because I think of it as a handy book.)
3. Don't provide more information than is needed. If the item you're describing is very complex, break it down and handle each segment separately, always asking yourself: Does the user/reader need to know this? Can it be put into an appendix, or does it have to be upfront?
4. When you're writing an instruction booklet or user manual, put yourself in the shoes of the poor unfortunate person who will have to decipher what you mean, and write it in a logical order, rather than skipping around. If a topic doesn't lend itself to a logical order, devise a visual scheme for yourself and reader, such as a circle, bar chart, pie chart or diagram to show the relationship between the elements. If you're trying to explain cloud computing to a nontechnical team, for instance, diagrams will show things more clearly.
5. As an adjunct to No. 4, incorporate visuals. This may seem like a no-brainer, but many people who write instructions or directions seem to forget that a map, a diagram or a group of sequenced photos can often be easier to understand than the written word.
6. Add resources, such as URLs, to your material that readers can use to follow up. There are now YouTube videos on practically any subject imaginable (and a few you couldn't have imagined!). Send your readers to the Web, YouTube or even to DVDs in the public library for additional information.
7. Proofread the finished product yourself, and then ask several coworkers or friends to proof it as well. We're not looking only for typos here, but for page numbers that don't agree with the table of contents and index, headings that don't match what's on the page, descriptions of the same items or guidelines that differ from one section to another, things that appear in the contents but not in the book, and so on. You get the idea. Approach proofreading from the perspective of an innocent reader who's looking for information.
8. Test, test and test some more! By that I mean find a typical reader, whether it's a coworker, a handy spouse or your neighbor, and ask him or her to read and follow the instructions. It won't be long before you discover everything you've left out or distorted. Also ask your tester to give you back their version of one part of the material. You'll quickly see where the bugs are.
9. If you're working with HR, insurance, medical or payroll materials, or other sensitive content, check with the company's legal department to be sure individual words aren't hot-button words that can be distorted.
10. And, if you're revising or using material that others may have written before you, try to discover where the material came from, to be sure you're not violating a copyright. Nonprofits may occasionally pick up say, health-related articles from previously published sources to insert into a newsletter or booklet for their members. Be sure the material isn't under someone else's copyright. Even something as innocuous as gardening information might have been "lifted" from the Web or published somewhere before it got to you.
11. If you're trying to use e-mail to give someone directions to a meeting or tell someone how to make a change in a Word document, your best bet is to number the information sequentially, like this:
To find the Optics Building at 635 East St. in Southampton, Pennsylvania:
1. Go to Google or MapQuest and print out the directions.
2. Find a Hagstrom's map and follow the route visually.
3. Take Route 7 until you reach Lake Ave.
And so on.
Or:
To change the size of the type on your screen:
1. In Word, go to View.
2. On the drop-down menu of View, find Zoom.
3. In Zoom, go to "percent" and change the type size.
You get the idea: simple, clear, sequential. A cookbook is a good guide, by the way. Don't you wish everyone wrote that way?
Let me know what kinds of instructional writing you do, and we'll tackle some specifics in a future column. Feel free to e-mail or visit my post on the IABC LinkedIn group.
