Sure. We’ve been reducing word count in procedures for some time. It’s time to do more, however. As noted in an earlier post, we have to think mobile. Think small screens and small devices. Screen real estate will be at a premium.
With that in mind, I’m offering some suggestions on how to cut back. Remember that users are now quite computer-savvy. I don’t think we have to concern ourselves with the level of basic understanding as we did in years past.
Personally, I don’t think it’s necessary to include all the bold type such as that shown in The Old Way example. Those would make the screen too busy, anyway. If you stand back and look at that example, what jumps out at you? Right – the bold type. The main item for each step. You can scan those steps and pull out what you need. When you strip out all the extra wording, you’re left with what was bold in the first place. So why not pull all the extraneous wording? Look at The Old Way bold items and look at the Cut More example. Notice anything? Aren’t they the same?
The Old Way
1. Settings > Contacts Settings > Update Contact Information
2. Click the Permissions tab.
3. In the Access dropdown list, select Global.
4. Click Save Changes.
Cut
1. Settings > Contacts Settings > Update Contact Information
2. Tab: Permissions
3. Access: Global
4. Save Changes
Cut More
1. Settings > Contacts > Update
2. Permissions
3. Global
4. Save
In the Cut More example, you can see that I dropped some of the menu titles. I know that we’re supposed to write it exactly as it appears. However, if you can drop a word so only the main one remains, then go with it. (Contacts is the main term of Contacts Settings; is the Settings item really necessary? Of course, in such a case, a chat with the developers about a UI change might not hurt either.) It would be a judgement call every time. You’d have to see what other menu or screen items there are to ensure that there’s no confusion. If you can cut it though, do so.
I think that we could at least go with Cut or Cut More, or perhaps a combination of the two. Get out your scissors and get to work. Keep cutting until you get all the way down to the least common denominator (going back to the days when I had to break down fractions).
I question whether Cut or Cut More would work well for languages and cultures other than English. In fact, I’m not sure that Cut or Cut More work at all.
I don’t have any issues with minimalism, but I think your examples go too far. For example, in Cut More, step 2…there’s no context. There’s nothing that says what I’m supposed to do about Permissions. Look at it until it does something? Even in Cut, the procedure looks quite unclear. Access:Global means …what? If you’re not reading the help topic with the screen displayed, you have no idea that Access is a list and global is an option in that list.
If the UI is so intuitive that you don’t need words to explain it, why not just remove the help topic?
I would have to agree with all of jgoldstein’s comments.
Again, a UI that works well wouldn’t need help topics.