Seven Tips for Writing Online Instruction

>> by Jackie Damrau<<

Summary: Writing online instructions requires a different approach from writing instructions on paper. Here are seven tips you can use to develop effective online instructions.

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Writing for online instruction is different than writing for technical learner manuals. When writing for learner manuals, you want to give all the details that you can to ensure that the learners understand the concepts as well as the ramifications of making a bumistake.

Writing online instruction requires taking a different audience approach than the one taken when writing technical learner manuals. In online instructional writing, the writing style calls for a more concise, summative form that makes retention of the material easier for the learners. Online instructional writing can be provided for soft skills or software simulations. Soft skills instructional writing requires finding the right graphic or video to demonstrate that specific skill under discussion for learner retention. Software simulations, on the other hand, may use non-sequential screen captures or a sequential workflow process that directs the learner on the proper use of the software.

Saul Carliner in his "Designing E-Learning" (2002, ASTD Press, pp. 141-144) book lists seven tips for writing for the screen that all online instructional designers can follow:

1. Write good leads
2. Write for scanning and skimming
3. Write dialogue, not text
4. Maintain a positive tone
5. Emphasize precision and clarity
6. Avoid assumptions
7. Write tightly

Adapting Carliner's 7 Screenwriting Tips

I am one of three writers on a team that creates animated training help files for software applications for internal and external customers. These help files use a step-by-step approach to teach the learners how to use the application in their business. File length (including audio) can range from 3 minutes up to 15 minutes.

Carliner's seven writing tips is one method that can help you in writing online instructional materials. Following each of Carliner's tips, I show you examples of how we write the text for our animated training files.

Tip #1: Write Good Leads

Writing good leads involves leading the learners into the lesson by telling them what they can expect to learn. An effective online lead should not exceed more than two screens.

Each of our animated training files starts with a lesson learning objective frame, an introduction frame, and a ends with a conclusion frame.

Examples:
" Learning objective frame: "In this lesson, you will learn how to customize the ABC software using the Preferences menu."
" Introduction frame: "The development of ABC software is intended to automate the billing processes that you perform manually today."
" Conclusion frame: "In this lesson, you learned how to … This concludes the ___________ lesson."

Tip #2: Write for Scanning and Skimming

This tip refers to writing for scanning and skimming, which requires knowing your audience's online reading style. Those reading online content, like Web pages or any downloadable document, want to be able to read quickly and get the information so that they can move on to the next frame.

For animated training files, it is more difficult to write for a scanning/skimming reader or learner. The text that my group writes is much like a newspaper cartoon that requires as few words as possible be written to convey the concept for each frame. We provide downloadable information as supplementary material that the learners can have available at their fingertips. We use headings, bulleted lists, tables, and charts, as necessary, to convey this information so the learner can scan or skim the contents to get the information quickly.

Example:
"Now, let's click on Save."

Tip #3: Write Dialogue, not Text

Writing online content for animated training files is different than when writing for online user manuals. Online content for animated training files requires you to know how to write the content as if you are sitting next to the learners and individually instructing them on the proper use of the application.

In technical manuals, some companies are still enamored of the phrase "the user", while others prefer the second person (or in special cases, the third person) to bring more personalization to the documentation. In online instructional writing, the recommended style is to assume that you are addressing a single learner, where you should always use the second person.

Example:
"You will type in the patient's vital statistics in the appropriate text fields."

Tip #4: Maintain a Positive Tone

Your writing should be encouraging, upbeat, and lead the learners to a successful conclusion. With our animated training files, like any C/WBT you may have experienced, we have segments where we let the learner interact with the application. We strategically place messages like "Great! You got it!" or "Try again!"

In technical manuals, you often find items like cautions and warnings that tell the readers about any potential harm that can occur when improperly using the hardware or software. We write this way because often no one reads the manuals we so diligently write. We can train all we want, yet we know there will always be one person out there that will do what shouldn't be done. I believe that warnings can be written in a positive manner and not in the big, bold "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!" style.

Example:
"Clicking this button will terminate the session without saving the data. Are you sure you want to do this?" We will place a colored highlight box over the button so the learner knows what button not to click.

Tip #5: Emphasize Precision and Clarity

Writing with precision and clarity are definite requirements for any type of online instructional text or multimedia-based deliverable. Precision and clarity rely on short, succinct phrasing for the learner to understand the exact message. In technical user manuals, precision and clarity are required, but the textual content can be enhanced with a longer explanation of why it is so important.

Example:
"Select the test result, then click Preview."

Tip #6: Avoid Assumptions

Avoiding assumptions is probably one of the hardest things for an instructional writer or technical communicator to not do. Carliner says, "Don't make assumptions about the ease with which learners will grasp the content by using terms such as easy, clear, and simple.

As you are working through an application and writing the documentation, whether as an animated training file or printed user's guide, learn to question your subject matter expert (SME) thoroughly about the knowledge and experience level of the learners or users.

Examples:
Ask questions like:
"Is this a brand new application that the learners have never seen before?"
"Is this application replacing an existing one that has some of the same features or terminology that the learners will already be familiar with?"

Develop your own questions to fit your materials. Remember, the first three letters of the word, assumption, is not what you or your SME want to look like to your audience.

Tip #7: Write Tightly

Write tightly is probably the hardest of Carliner's seven points to apply. Tight writing requires using as few words as possible. This tip can be used with Tip #2 so the material is easier to scan or skim. Yet, following Carliner's suggestion of keeping "sentences to 50 words, paragraphs to seven lines, topics to one or two screens, and lesson (units) to 10-20 screens…[and] by cutting unnecessary words" gives the instructional writer good guidelines to follow.

The animated training files that I write cannot follow this suggestion. We try to keep our writing down to one or two sentences of less than 20 words. Of course, we do have exceptions to this. At times, our customers' write the text they want used in the animated training files. This text exceeds Carliner's suggestion and exceeds what we know to work well in an online training environment. We discuss our concerns with the customer, yet if they insist on having long (more than one) paragraphs per frame, we comply. Lessons, in our case, rarely meet Carliner's suggested 10 to 20 screens; we try to break our lessons by functionality, which may require more than 20 screens.

Technical manuals don't have this requirement, yet effective writing should always be tight. In the past when I wrote technical manuals, I always tried to put everything that I knew about an element in writing. We know now that a technical manual is only read when it is needed, thus writing tightly is better than providing unnecessary information. I may think it is necessary, but would my target audience think the same.

Examples:
Bad writing (81 words): "This screen shows all the information you will need to know about the patient. The first part of this screen shows the patient's demographic information followed by any medication allergies they may have. As you are entering in information for the patient, note any other allergies or adverse reactions they may have in the Comments field. You can also use the Comments field for any other patient-related information that you feel the provider should know before starting treatment on this patient."

Tight writing (20 words): "This screen shows patient's demographics and medical allergies taken during the admissions interview. Use Comments for other medical reaction information."

Conclusion

Online instructional writing is definitely different than writing technical user manuals. It requires you to "put yourself in the learner's shoes," but you can do it. Using Carliner's seven screenwriting tips is a start to enhancing your writing style when you are tasked with writing for media that will be presented in an online format, like a Web page, a C(W)BT, or an animated training file.

Of course, rules can be bent as necessary when you have a paying customer. Our goal is to provide the customer with the best looking product that meets the contractual needs; however, if they insist on having long, wordy captions in an animated training file, then you conform. After all, the mantra of the "Customer is always right!" still is evident today.

My goals for sharing these tips is to help others learn from the many mistakes that I started out with when I first began writing animated training files. It didn't take me too long to discover that I could change my writing style to be more compact, tighter, and less wordy. You, too, can improve your online writing skills.

I'd be interested in any comments you may have on how you write your e-learning instructional materials and what methods you use. We learn from our peers (that's you), so share your methods with our members.

Jackie Damrau has over 20 years of technical writing experience and over six years in creating training materials and delivering soft-skills training courses. She is a senior technical writer on the Dynamic Solutions Team at Perot Systems. Jackie is a senior member and 2004-2005 President, STC Lone Star Chapter. You can send e-mail to her at jdamrau3@airmail.net.

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