Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I point back to a classic but little-known work on instructing people how to do something.

Way back in time in the mid-1980s (yes, I am that old), I stumbled onto a book written by Edmond H. Weiss titled How to Write a Usable User Manual. I thought it was a basic book that reiterated what everyone knew. I have now concluded that this little-known book is a work of genius that somehow has been lost to the world.

Weiss shows how to instruct people how to do things. Step 1 followed by step 2 followed by step 3. That is too simple to occupy a book, right? That is too simple because everyone knows how to do that, right?

I wish the answers to those questions were, “yes” but they aren’t. It breaks my heart and hurts my head to daily encounter lousy instructions and unusable user manuals.

Buy this book! Use it. Follow it. Please.