Procedural Steps II

Subject: Procedural Steps II
From: Ron Rothbart <ron -dot- rothbart -at- DOCUMENTUM -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:53:47 +0800

Margaret Packman writes:
>Now I have a question on how to number steps within longer procedures. For
>example, I have one procedure to document that's 47 steps long.
<snip>

I had one with almost the same number of steps. It's a dialog box with 5
tabs containing lots of widgets and spreadsheet-like fields. The user has to
work through all 5 tabs to complete the task.

Personally, I find the military/engineering numbering system distasteful. It
just looks too technical. Our style is to use letters for sub-steps and
bullets for alternative options. Sub-steps work like this:

8. To specify dependencies, click the Routing tab and do the following:
a. Click in a cell in the such-and-such column, enter the indentification
number, and press the Enter key.
b. xxxxxxxxxx
c. xxxxxxxx

This procedure is also "puncutated" by a screenshot of each tab. So, the
40-odd step procedure becomes 13 steps, as represented below (* represents a
filled bullet; - represents an unfilled sub-bullet).

1.xxxxxx
2.xxxxxx
3.xxxxxx
screenshot
4.xxxxxxx
5.xxxxxxx
* xxxxxx
* xxxxxx
- xxxxxx
- xxxxxx
6.xxxxxx
7.xxxxxx
a.xxxxxx
b.xxxxxx
c.xxxxxx
8.xxxxxx
screenshot
a.xxxxx
b.xxxxxx
c.xxxxxx
* xxxxxx
* xxxxxx
* xxxxxx
d.xxxxxx
e.xxxxxx
f.xxxxxx
g.xxxxxx
* xxxxxx
* xxxxxx
* xxxxxx
h.xxxxxx
9.xxxxxx
screenshot
a.xxxxxx
b.xxxxxx
c.xxxxxx
d.xxxxxx
10.xxxxxx
screenshot
a.xxxxxx
b.xxxxxx
c.xxxxxx
d.xxxxxx
11.xxxxxx
screenshot
a.xxxxxx
b.xxxxxx
c.xxxxxx
d.xxxxxx
12.xxxxxx
13.xxxxxx
a.xxxxxx
b.xxxxxx

Fortunately, they're doing the right thing now and completely redesigning
the interface!


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