At the beginning of a project to write instructions, it’s important to determine the structure and characteristics of the particular procedure you are going to write about. Analysis of the overall scenario in which the instructions will be used is important. It may be that a web-based instructional video or web-based document will better serve the needs of your readers than a print document. The print document may still be necessary, and you will need to analyze the process and write the instructions carefully, regardless of the format in which you deliver the instructions.

AUDIENCE AND SITUATION

Early in the process, define the audience and situation for the instruction set. Remember that defining an audience includes defining its level of familiarity with the topic. This aspect is particularly important when writing instructions. It is also necessary to define the situation in which the instructions will be used in order to determine the best format in which to deliver the instructions. For example, if the instructions will be used outdoors, in weather, plain paper is not a good option. Many organizations now put instructions online, as either PDF documents or videos, to provide easy access to instructions for their customers. Videos, on YouTube other video-posting sites, are frequently used as a delivery system for instructions.

NUMBER OF TASKS

Let’s use the term procedure to refer to the whole set of activities the instructions are intended to discuss. A task is an independent group of steps within the overall procedure. A simple procedure like changing the oil in a car contains only one task; there are no semi-independent groupings of steps in separate tasks within the procedure. A more complex procedure like unboxing and using a microwave oven contains many tasks: unwrapping, situating the oven properly, connecting the power, setting the clock; using the timer, setting the power level; and cleaning and maintaining the microwave, among others. Each of these tasks has its own set of steps.

Some instructions have only a single procedure, but include many tasks, each of which has many steps within that single task. For example, imagine a set of instructions for assembling a kids’ swing set, which can have more than 100 steps. That can be a bit daunting. A good approach is to group similar and related steps into separate tasks. A task is a group of steps within a multi-task procedure. Each task has its own numbered set of steps, always beginning at 1. In the swing-set example, setting up the frame would be a task; anchoring the frame in the ground would be another; assembling the box swing would be still another. Each independently-numbered, multi-step task contributes to the overall process of assembling the entire swing set.

BEST APPROACH TO  STEPS

Another consideration, which you may not be able to determine early on, is how to focus your instruction steps. For most instructions, you can focus on tasks, or you can focus on tools.

In a task approach (also known as task orientation) the instructions for using voicemail might have these sections:

• recording a greeting
• playing back messages
• saving messages
• forwarding messages
• deleting messages, and so on

These are tasks—the typical things we’d want to do in our voicemail app. On the other hand, in a tools approach, there would be these unlikely sections:

• voicemail button
• greeting button
• custom button
• record button
• stop button, and so on

A set of instructions using this tools approach would require writing steps for using each button or feature of the phone. Instructions using the tools approach can be difficult to formulate. Sometimes, the name of the button doesn’t quite match the task it is associated with; sometimes a task requires more than one button. Still, there may be occasional situations when the tools approach is preferable.

GROUPING TASKS

Listing tasks may not be all that you need to do. There may be so many tasks that you must group them so that readers can find individual tasks more easily. For example, the following are common task groupings in instructions:

• unboxing and setup tasks
• installing and customizing tasks
• basic operating tasks
• routine maintenance tasks
• troubleshooting tasks, etc.