Technology & Teamwork Making Sense of Step-by-step Procedures

Procedural instructions that consist of only a sequence of steps will probably be executable, but nevertheless “meaningless I ’ to users of technical devices. This paper discusses three features that can make procedural instructions more meaningfirl: adding finctional coordinating information, adding information about the use of the technical device in real lfe, and adding operational information about how the device works. The research literature supports the eflectiveness of the first feature, but oflers little evidence that real l fe elements enhance understanding of instructions. As for operational information, the research suggests that users are willing to read it, and that it contributes to better understanding and performance in the long term, but only $it is closely related to the procedure. As a conclusion, we propose a theoretical framework that assumes three levels of mental representation of instructions: syntactical, semantic, and situational. “What did we do?” “I know I did something, but I don’t know what it is” “I’m getting confused because I’m not actually doing anything except following these directions.” Such comments were recorded by Carroll and Mack (1984, p. 24) fiom novice computer users who tried to master a text processor. Computer manuals and online documentation offer step-by-step instructions for performing specific actions. Typically, the steps are brief, ordered in