Deprived of Words, We Labor On

The estimable Lloyd has asked me to put into writing my philosophy of instructional design for on-screen reading, which can be summed up in seven words:

"We have their attention for five words."

(Note the irony)

People don't read anymore. I'm not sure how anyone becomes educated these days, because from what I've observed in usability testing, people are not going to read to the end of this sentence, much less finish Moby Dick.

But still we wish to communicate with these word-deprived people. Technical writing research scientists are hard at work these days, searching for new ways to reach people whose eyes automatically slide away from the content-loaded text on the screen and over to the little blinky thing on the left.

One concept is to communicate mostly in screen captures. So instead of writing "Open the File menu and choose New Blog Post," the author presents a little picture of the File menu, open, with the pointer resting on the New Blog Post option. Maybe you'll even throw in a little picture of the bog editor window, with an arrow implying that an open editor window is the consequence of choosing New Blog Post. This approach is promising, and I'm trying to adopt it in my own work. (Perhaps one day you'll tune into this blog and find a post composed entirely of screen pictures!)

My own personal concept, my favorite alternative, is to re-write all user's guides as graphic novels. If I could draw, or work with an illustrator, that's the approach I'd use. I'd love to write an explanation of the client-server relationship entirely in cartoons!

Meanwhile, we must do our best. The open source community is especially taxed, because it has sensed the need to communicate more effectively with "end users," but doesn't know how, and doesn't employ a lot of technical writers.

So here are six tips for writing clear documents. If you follow these tips, your sentences will be shorter with no sacrifice of meaning. These tips take less than one minute to read.

Number 1: Use direct verbs

USE: "Now that the basic files are ready, we can create the topbar."
NOT: "Now that the basic files are ready, the topbar can be created."

Number 2: Speak directly to the reader, as if you're having a dialog

USE: "If you don't have experience with XUL, you may want to read the tutorial."
NOT: "If the reader doesn't have experience with XUL, he or she may want to read the tutorial."

Number 3: Use present tense

USE: "In the chrome.manifest file, we define the important directories."
NOT: "In the chrome.manifest file, we will define the important directories."

Number 4: Keep text as short as possible

USE: "Click OK."
NOT: "Click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box."

Number 5: Avoid quotation marks

USE: "Open the Flock menu"
NOT: "Open the 'Flock' menu"

Number 6: Don't use all caps; avoid capitalizing tools, widgets, etc.

USE: "Creating a Flock topbar"
NOT: "Creating a Flock Topbar" or "Creating a Flock TOPBAR"

It may seem that there is no relationship between the subject of this blog post and the topic about which I claim to be writing: namely, exposing and trashing the Dominator Model.

But if you look hard enough, you'll find that everything is related to the Dominator Model. For the abbreviated attention spans that seem to keep people from reading more than five words at a time, I blame the patriarchy.