Quick Reference Guides Right Where You Need Them

April 9th, 2009 | Posted in blog 5 Comments »

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Quick Reference Guides

Have you ever tried to adjust your office chair but couldn’t remember how to do it? Do you ever look at all the little levers under your seat and wonder how they work with the myriad muscles in your back? Don’t you wish you could just pull a quick reference guide … out of the arm of your chair?

Birds eye view of the quick reference guide

Here’s a close-up:

Close-up view of the quick reference guide

Thanks to Louellen Coker of Content Solutions for sending me these pictures. I believe this is her actual chair, which is from Neutral Posture. It’s a great example of integrating help directly in the user interface, making it part of the product rather than a separate entity.

Series NavigationLessons Learned with Quick Reference Guides: Timing and TruthQuick Reference Guide Formats — Tips for Finding Attractive Layouts

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mike says:

April 10, 2009 at 1:29 am

Just-in-time instructions, sort of. More and more I’ve done this on an informal basis. For example, because I never could remember the order in which to attach jumper cables, I wrote out a small (business-card sized) set of instructions, laminated it, and tied it to the cables. On the back of my router I taped a scan out of the manual of what all the blikenlights mean. I just got a new camera and was intending (Real Soon Now) to make a micro-manual of the most common functions that I could keep close enough to the camera to be useful. I think there’s a business opportunity to create small guides like this (wallet-sized, or no more than 3×5) for many common devices or tasks.

Tom says:

April 10, 2009 at 7:52 am

Mike, thanks for your comment. Attaching instructions on a laminated card on your cables and router is a great idea. I need to do something like that myself.

Sarah Maddox says:

Awesome! It looks like it’s got a nice teaser in that tab at the top too, tempting you to pull out the tab and discover the guide.

I’m intrigued about the bright red marker near bottom right of the first picture. Perhaps it’s a guide to using the magic flying Persian carpet that the chair is standing on

Richard L. Hamilton says:

April 10, 2009 at 11:19 am

I have a programmable thermostat that has slot with the quick reference card built in. I’m not sure I would buy one without that feature now that I’ve seen how useful it is.

Craig says:

April 13, 2009 at 7:25 am

Mike’s comment about his jumper cables reminded me of how my dad taught me. His quick-and-dirty method was, once you fry yourself or the battery, you’ll never forget again, therefore, there’s no need to write anything down at all. The correct and safe connection method, as I remember it, is negative to ground, then positive to positive. My episodes were always serious enough to warrant negative to negative, and positive to positive connection. The “ground” referred to the good old days when bumpers were heavy chrome (not this lightweight plastic stuff)!

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