As consumers everywhere can confirm, online user help and support is a tremendous pain in the neck. Once you throw in the towel and click to get support – if you can find it that is – more often than not, the written instructions are complex jargon or incomplete steps that leave you feeling completely bamboozled.
Is it little wonder that recent research from Forrester’s customer service expert found that an astonishing 81 percent of consumers prefer speaking to a real person by phone or visiting the office/store in person to discuss their issue face-to-face, rather than subjecting themselves to online help?
Thankfully, when help desk workers are overwhelmed or feedback complaints are on the rise, the impulse to hide the phone number is not seriously considered – at least most of the time.
A better track for Web managers who want to steer visitors to helpful help is available: take a second look at how you write up instructions. Author Richard Saul Wurman says that to follow instructions without error or mistakes, you need to make sure you have included all the necessary elements to take action.
Aren’t you glad to know you are not to blame for poorly written instructions?
SIX STEPS TO MAKING INSTRUCTIONS ACTIONABLE
Here is his list, which could easily become a checklist you could use to inventory your current help content to grade it for being actionable or merely content masquerading as help.
- Objective: What’s The Destination?
- Purpose: For What Reason?
- Core: What’s The Procedure To Follow?
- Time: What’s The Duration?
- Expectation: What Can I Anticipate Along The Way?
- Failure: How Do I Recognize An Error/Common Mistakes?
Most of the time, we write instructions that focus only on the procedure and overlook the rest, especially the time and common mistakes. When you review your content for help against this list and identify what you are missing, chances are that adding the missing pieces will make your instructions easier to follow and take action on.
In Wurman’s excellent chapter on “actionable instructions” from Information Anxiety 2, he says it is not your fault when you make a mistake following inferior instructions. The responsibility lies instead with the poor instruction writer. His time-tested roadmap is remarkably similar to the directions you might give a friend you’ve invited to an event.
Here is his geographic example:
- We’d like you to come to our house next Friday (destination)
- We’re having a party to celebrate my birthday (reason)
- Our address is 1015 Forest. Get off at the Oak Park exit on the Eisenhower Expressway. (procedure)
- The whole drive should take about half an hour (time)
- On the expressway, you’ll pass Central Ave. and then Austin Ave. before you come to Oak Park (anticipation)
- If you see an exit for River Forest, you’ve gone too far (mistake)
When I’ve used this checklist against instructions, I find the steps most often left out seem to be “time” and “common mistakes“. Imagine a support page where you’re always informed about the task’s duration and how to avoid or troubleshoot common issues. It would help a lot of web readers breathe easily and make all of us – information providers and consumers alike – a little more productive.
WHAT DO YOU NAME THE BUTTON?
Of course, one step removed from actionable instructions is getting your users to click on the button so they can access your support information, which is a necessary precondition for your instructions to work at all. One piece of research suggests that you should examine the label for that specific area of your website. What do you call it? Many use the tried-and-true terms like “HELP” and “SUPPORT.”
The problem is that it seems men never ask for directions when they’re lost (an unfortunate stereotype, surely), and web users are reluctant to admit defeat. One researcher found that cloaking this section of the site, like a “secret,” to reveal the “tips” brought a significant increase in traffic to the content. Their solution was to re-label the HELP section and call it TIPS. We all like to be in on the secret.
