RE: Step structure (was RE: a question about verb tense/is or was ?)

["Walters, Christian (CCI-Atlanta)" <Christian -dot- Walters -at- cox -dot- com>]

I think it all depends on a lot of factors.  I've been trying to pick up
some stuff about usability, but it appears that the only way for it to work
is to get help from the programmers from the design phase.  Such as avoiding
little easy-to-click buttons which destroy your computer, melt your LAN,
sterilize your loins and kill your dog... or at least having some
confirmation boxes to click.

If you're dealing with a step that can bring about the end of the world, by
all means get that point across at all costs.  But not every click is
deadly.  I read some study (Jared Spool's, I think?) that encouraged us to
put the most important part of the step in the first three words, and I've
found that to help with readability and speed.  I have also found that there
are other, even more eye-catching ways to get dire warnings out to the
reader other than just slapping them in a leading phrase.

Also, we're getting a bit off the original point.  When I first opened my
mouth, I was thinking of something like this:

Click Copy from the Edit menu.

versus

>From the Edit menu, click Copy.

In this example, I think "click Copy" is the most important part and should
go right at the front of the sentence, and that's the standard I've managed
to sell here in my group.

But if you're giving them a choice to make (to click or not to click, or
whatever), I've taken to using some variant of an If/Then table, especially
if there are multiple choices possible.  It's a familiar enough object to
use, easy to scan, and the impact of the choice can be in the first column.
("If you want to..." "Then..." or something similar.)

Conversations like this are why I laugh a little laugh when someone tells me
about "universal documentation standards" :)


-----Original Message-----
From: Marguerite Krupp [mailto:mkrupp -at- cisco -dot- com]

I'll raise that to 10 cents!

Putting the condition before the action is a smart idea. People tend to DO
the action first, then read the rest of the sentence. Thus, I'd write:

To erase your hard drive, click Mumble...


instead of:

Click Mumble to erase your hard drive.

Imagine the screams of anguish in the first case from users who clicked
first and read the condition afterwards!


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