Forum Discussion
Job-Aid Design: Tips, Tricks, What to Include, How to Format?
Hello helpful instructional design & training peeps,
I've been working on designing a few job-aids lately and I was looking at templates and ideas for how to format it online when I though...
I think everyone has said this already... but functionality is a huge driver of the design of the job aid. Is this job aid a procedural reminder or call to action? Is it a reference document?
If it's a procedural reminder, then I try to go with a simple statement that sums up the objective. Any additional words, graphics, or images should direct the learner to the statement. For example, if the message is "Verify Every Call!" I might design an aid that explains the repercussions of failing to properly verify a caller. The options are pretty open with this one.
If it's a reference document, I'm focusing on usability and convenience more than attractive design. In this case, a simple word document with a neatly designed chart will do.
I have made design and content reasons based on page size too. If it's an aid that will be kept at an agents desk, I do whatever I can to neatly fit the information on a one-sided 8.5 x 11 page. Employees here will do better with a simple one page reference document taped up on their cubicle than they will a detailed three page document that they have to flip through.
Ultimately, I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for our employees to make a correct decision or follow the proper procedure. I want to do that in the least amount of clicks/page turns/sentences possible
Great advice! I wish I could keep my job aid to under one page, but this will be multiple for using a software. I'm hoping to make it come to life!
Jessie:
I've done a lot of work with (and advocating for) job aids. One thing that's helpful, I think, is to see both job aids and training-to-memory (which is really "learning," but makes a better contrast in this case) as paths to a larger goal: someone able to accomplish some task. These aren't the only ways, but maybe the prime ones when information is involved.So, if people have to accomplish this cluster of tasks related to the inventory system, there are probably some terms and concepts they need to learn (store in their heads so they can retrieve in appropriate situations), like lead time or safety stock or minimum order. And there are probably several tasks they'll carry out every day, so learning makes senses for requesting inventory status, reviewing current orders, recognizing shortages, whatever. (We might use job aid formats to help people learn the process and practice these in training, but these job aids are more like training wheels, and we intend that people won't need them for long.
Other task are infrequent, or have many steps, or have high consequence for error, or have other features that argue for using job aids.The key point there is that it's not the size of the task, nor the size of the job aid: if it takes 57 steps to optimize the widget former, that's how many steps it takes, and you could end up with a large job aid, or perhaps a set of six job aids (one for each major stage of the widget optimization process).
Because of who its customers are, IKEA's manual for assembling its Galant desk is 40 pages long -- not that you need all 40 for the desk you bought, but because that's what they needed to cover all the different combinations for the desk. I wrote about that here: https://www.ensampler.com/archives/813
