For references or directives, do you say where/why and then what/how, or vice versa?

[Lin Sims <ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I was reminded of this question during the earlier thread on whether to use
"see" or "reference" and decided a nice philosophical argument would be a
good way to round out the week. :)

My preference has always been to tell people why or where they're doing
something and then telling them what to do. This was a result from an
online training I took years ago that gave instructions such as:

"Type Foo in the Baz field."

on a really crowded screen, so you had no chance to FIND the Baz field
before the training had moved on through 5 more fields.

That experience is why I decided I'd be writing my instructions in the
following format, even if I had a screenshot with callouts:

"In the Baz field at the top right of the screen, type Foo."

Similarly, if I was referring people to someplace else for more
information, I'd word it as:

"For information on fiddling the thingbub on the Baz, see What's a Baz and
Why Do I Care?"

But I recently came out of 5 years in a job where the style was to give the
action first, as in:

"Type Foo in the Baz field."

or

"See What's a Baz and Why Do I Care? for information on fiddling the
thingbub on the Baz."

I've never liked that. I can understand that convention was used because
they wanted everything to be a direct instruction and to have the
instruction right up front, and normally I'd agree with them; but these are
two situations where I feel it's more important to tell the where or the
why before telling the how or the what.

Who has strong preferences for one versus the other, and why?



-- 
Lin Sims
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