Lesson 4: Writing Procedures

Perform the acts you're describing

A sure way to provide incorrect instructions is to rely on your memory when writing procedures. Even if you've performed a task hundreds of times, you will always forget one small step or provide wishy-washy directions at some point along the way because you can't quite remember if the menu item is named "Remove all users" or "Delete users".

If you're overly familiar with a procedure you are also prone to leave out steps or combine multiple steps into one gigantic step that's confusing to someone not as familiar with the process as you are.

For instance, most of us know how to save a file. Let's assume you're all using Mac OS X Jaguar writing in TextEdit (since that's precisely what I'm doing right now and I always heed my own advice of doing what I'm describing). I could assume you understand the basic idea of how to save a file and provide this procedure for saving files:

1. Save the text file in the location of your choice

But in reality what I want you to do is:

1. Select the File|Save As menu item
2. Name the file in the Save As text area
3. Select a location from the Where dropdown box
4. Press the Save button

or alternately:

1. Select the File|Save As menu item
2. Name the file in the Save As text area
3. Navigate to the location of your choice using the directory viewer
4. Press the Save button

Now most of that should be self-explanatory, even if you've never saved a file in Jaguar before. But people learn and extrapolate at different rates and by spelling out precise directions I've made sure every reader will be able to follow my instructions quickly and without much experimentation.

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