Instructions

The team project is almost over, when suddenly a wave of panic invades my class. We're all wondering:

1. Where do we submit the assignment?
2. What format must we use?
3. Must we only submit the original version or both original and translated versions?

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The last question is easy to answer. In the assignment instruction sheet, it says we'll be only graded on the instructional document, it means we don't need to worry of the translated version. However, the two other questions don't figure anywhere on the instruction sheet.

What happen when information is missing? The facts I'm going to relate now occur to my class, but I believe those facts also happen to users when the instructions are missing.

First, we refer to what we're used to. On Sulis, there's a section called Assignments. In that section, the lecturers create new folders for each assignment. Students submit their assignments in the relevant folder. For my team project, my lecturer created a folder for it.

But today, we were told not to submit in the Assignments section, but in the Resources folder. Students never use the Resources folder. Only lecturers use it to put the lecture slides and material for learning. It also leads to confusion on how to upload the assignment in the Resources folder.

Two problems appear in this change: the user is confused by a sudden change and has to learn how to use the new tool.

Secondly, we always choose the simplest and the most convenient. I don't have Word contrary to other students, so I use OpenOffice because it's free. In addition, I've been taught to use OpenOffice for years now, since I'm in secondary school. Consequently, working with OpenOffice is much easier to me than Word.

As I believe not everyone uses the same tool as I, I always convert my OpenOffice documents into a PDF file, this way everyone can open my files. I don't convert to a .doc file because the formatting is different, and my original file is just broken after that.

When I heard that students should submit their assignments in a Word doc, well, it was too late for me. My document is ready for submission, all the formatting has been done perfectly, converting it into Word will just destroy all the work I've done.

The problem which appears here is some steps are definite, you can't undo them.

Presenting important instructions at the beginning of a task required is essential. If instructions are missing, the user feels frustrated, loses their time to find out what is missing and how to solve the problem, and they sometimes can't go back to the departure that means can't fix the problem.