Re. Number list with only one item?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Harry Hager <<... uses numbered lists to identify the sequence of steps in a
user procedure... when the procedure consists of only a single step, I also
use a numbered list. For example: "To display the xyz window: 1. From the
abc menu in the def window, select xyz. The progam opens the xyz window.>>

The question you're raising involves two problems. First, you want to help
readers find the procedure, and second, you want to make the steps in the
procedure easy to follow. If you're really trying to use visual cues to help
readers find procedures, those cues should be headings, not numbers. Thus,
in terms of the first problem, there's no need to use numbers just for
consistency. In terms of the second problem, and assuming the writing itself
is competent, making the procedural steps easy to follow means separating
them from the surrounding text. If there are multiple procedures under a
heading, separated by expository text, you could probably add an icon such
as a checklist in the margin. Using a number for a single text could
actually confuse readers more than helping them: for example, based on
having dealt with uncountable numbered procedures over the past many years,
my reaction upon seeing the first number in a list is to look for the number
that follows it; if I don't see the number, I start to suspect that
something's been left out and I have to do a reality check to confirm that
I've actually completed the procedure.

<<When a reader looks, browses, or reads my documentation they can
immediately determine which information is a procedure. Every time a reader
sees a numbered list in my documentation, they know it's a procedure.>>

The browsing aspect is important, but if readers need the numbers to find
procedures, you may be mixing too much expository text with your procedural
material. For procedures as simple as the examples you've shown, there's
generally no need to add exposition, and that means that as soon as readers
encounter the heading "opening windows" (for your first example, above),
they should be able to count on the "how to" information beginning in the
first or second short paragraph after that heading. If more information than
that is necessary for readers to understand the procedure, then they're no
longer browsing: they're reading to obtain that contextual information. And
if they're reading rather than browsing, they'll find the procedural
information anyway.

One other thought occurs to me. Is it possible that your one-step procedure
is really the first or last step in a larger procedure? In your example
(displaying the xyz window), it's unlikely that opening the window is the
end result. The reader will probably immediately follow this step with
another one: "deffing" whatever it is that readers def in the xyz window.
Sometimes, single-step procedures like this must really be repeated several
times throughout the documentation, each time as the first or last step of a
procedure. Other times, they're basic "how to use Windows" types of material
that should be integrated within a tutorial rather than within the
procedural manual itself. Worth a thought?

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful
item that weighs less than its operating manual."--Terry Pratchett, "Jingo"