Re: Indicating a skipped portion in instructions

[Chantel Brathwaite <brathwaitec -at- castupgrade -dot- com>]

How complex and how long are the instructions that you need to skip 
over?  Also, how will the documentation be delivered (print, online 
...).  This will help us to help you with a solution.

There are a couple of generic ways to handle this.  You've identified 
one - which is the if/then table.  That often works well if a major 
chunk or two is different, but other instructions are the same.  If you 
have a lot of little differences throughout the instructions though, it 
can feel a little kludgy.  One way to handle that situation is to use an 
outline.

1. Everyone do this step.
2. The next step depends on the options you have.  Do ONE of the following.
     - If you have Option A do the following.
        a. Option A step 1.
        b. Option A step 2.
        c. Go to step 3.
    - If you have Options B and C do the following.
        a. Option B step 1.
        b. Option B step 2.
        c. Go to step 3.
3. Everyone do this step.
4. This step depends on the options you have.  Do ONE of the following.
   - If you have Options A and B, do the following.
...
  - If you have Option C, do the following.
...

And so forth.

If there are significantly more differences than similarities, 
especially there are a lot - but the instructions aren't all that long, 
it might be worth it to go ahead and separate them out and print each 
option separately even if it means repeating information.  If your 
desktop publishing program (or whatever you are using to maintain 
documentation) allows you to import text from other places or use 
variables or conditional text, you can maintain a single copy yourself 
so that you aren't having to redo work - but can print things out 
separately.  Customers sometimes appreciate this.

1. INTRODUCTION

About the Widget 3000
Options
How this guide is organized


2. WIDGET 3000 - OPTION A
....

3. WIDGET 3000 - OPTION B
....

4. WIDGET 3000 - OPTION C

And so forth.

As you mentioned, color is an option, but then again, you have to think 
about color-blind users and possibly expense (I don't know how you are 
delivering the document).  If the changes are small (like selecting one 
option over another if you are using Option A vs. B) you might be able 
to simply indicate the changes in parenthesis [e.g. - Click the DC Input 
radio button.  (Option A users: Select the AC Input radio button 
instead.)]  Or you could use space - maybe all of the Option A 
instructions could be in a lightly shaded box next to the instructions 
for example.

If you are delivering the manual electronically, you could consider 
incorporating some sort of variable that they indicate up front so that 
the pages only show the information that they are interested in for the 
options they have.  I don't know what you are using so I don't know if 
that is possible, but it is an idea.

Another approach could be to put the differences in an Appendix - 
especially if only a very small percentage of your audience will be 
using the options.

I'm sure there are many more ways to approach this, but if we know a bit 
more about the specifics of your project, it might help us to also be 
more specific.

Chantel

On 5/23/2011 5:17 PM, Martinek, Carla wrote: