Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Instructions are Tricky Creatures
During my sophomore year when I took my first IE class, there is a class called IE 210. This is a Human Factors class. During the lab we studied the importance of good DETAILED instructions. We watched the youtube videos about making a peanut butter sandwich based on instructions given by someone else. It was extremely difficult because so many times people do not give detailed directions that can be taken literally word for word. We leave stuff out mainly because we assume its "common sense". Good directions are written so that they can not be confused or misinterpreted. I am interested to see how we are going to study this topic in this Technical Writing class. I am just interested to see the approach Dr. Barnet is going to take. Instructions have to be tailored to the audience and they have to consider the fact that the user may be completely ignorant to how to perform the task. The only assumption that can safely be made is that the user has no idea how to complete the task.
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I definitely agree with you. Some people just really DON'T have ANY common sense, or they will just pretend that they don't so that they can sue the crap out of people. Like the person who spilt McDonalds' coffee on themselves, then sued McDonald's and got away with it because there wasn't a "Caution: Hot" sign. You can never assume people have common sense, especially if it is a general audience instead of a technical one.
ReplyDeleteYea I agree as well, no matter how detailed you are with instructions or something, there is always going to be those people out there that just do not get it. The more you try and help by explaining more or going into more detail will just confuse that person even more.
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