Tips and Insights

Our guys—the illustrators—laughed at the notion of drawing with Excel until one of the clients we coach revealed that Excel and Word were her only options for creating in-house work instructions. We had to do some fast learning. Actually, I had to do some fast learning; the illustrators stayed away from it. As it turns out, most simple shapes are possible in Excel, and I learned quickly how to group, align, and rotate objects, as well as add dimension and depth.

As a platform for developing graphic work instructions, especially when compared with a Word file, the Excel spreadsheet format offers some advantages:

• Drawing in Excel is easier than a sophisticated illustration program such as Adobe Illustrator.
• You can scan photos, insert them in Excel, and then trace them into drawings. This allows you to manipulate the shapes as needed.
• Once you develop a library of parts and pieces, you can easily create new instructions. Check out this example...

Of course, Excel also has some limitations:

• You can't import CAD files.
• Isometric/perspective views are limited.
• Using color with customized shapes is tricky.

Sophistication is possible, though, if you want to take the time to practice. Look at what this gal can do. After studying her intricate drawings—including expression in the faces—I was pretty happy our client only asked me to draw machines or parts that I could reduce to combinations of squares and circles.

By the way, you use pretty much the same drawing tools in Word and PowerPoint, so once you've mastered one application in Microsoft Office, you've mastered them all.

Labels: Excel, illustrations, visual work instructions

It just so happens that all of our illustrators are males, though we do have a couple female artists who choose to focus on other talents while at work. As a former teacher, I've interacted with lots of creative students, but I've never worked closely with visual artists for any length of time.

Our guys have a funny habit of decorating a whiteboard each week as a way, I think, to vent their artistic creativity. (Occasionally, drawing machines and parts can be less than mind-bending.) The 4' x 5' whiteboard balances on a chair against the wall in the north wing. They only use black dry erase pens, and Gunther has written a disclaimer at the top: "All materials drawn/illustrated or imposed upon this 'Community Creativity Board' (CCB) are hereby property of the 'Artistic Bishop Community' (ABC)." He wrote that because he wanted everyone to know their art could be altered without permission.

Typically, someone will draw a simple figure, and then others will make additions and revisions until they've covered the board. This week we have a Sponge Bob (who later got "cut" in half), a turtle with weepy eyes, a dinosaur with a unibrow, and a Pac-Man chomping after Inky up a volcano on top of which astronauts have landed. At the end of the week, Gunther takes a photo of the drawing, erases the board, and lets it stand, naked and ready for the following week.

When I write it out, it doesn't sound nearly as creative as it looks. I've convinced Phil to add a link to this week's board so you can be the judge.


» Click here for larger image

(By the way, once the illustrators read this piece, they started to "dress" the board on Friday nights because they didn't want it to be "naked." You can imagine the results.)

Labels: creativity, illustrations, illustrators

For work instructions, we use graphics over text whenever possible because of the advantages illustrations offer, including improving comprehension. Our goal is to give operators a context—a complete sense of what they have to do in the procedure—just by looking at the illustrations.

It's consistent with our recognition of aliteracy and the necessity for operators to be able to access information quickly and efficiently during high-stress moments. It also helps as a training tool. If new employees can see what's happening before they ever work on a machine, it not only helps with learning, it also aids in retention.

There are other advantages to using illustrations, including the option of manipulating the focus of attention—difficult to do with photos unless you have time to change them in Photoshop or other editing software. The accompanying PDF shows a technique we use to focus attention.

This page comes from a client's manual for servicing a hydraulic pump.


» Click here for larger image

To assemble this pump, the technician had to tighten 25 bolts using five different torque values. To identify the sets of bolts on the pump housing, we used shading to fade back unimportant details, allowing us to highlight the differences between the bolts.

Here are some points to note:

• We decided to use 2D illustrations for their simplicity because detail wasn't necessary for this procedure.
• We used successive illustrations of the same view (easy for an operator to follow) with different sets of bolts highlighted for the corresponding torque values.
• You could achieve the same contrast with a photo editor by fading back and highlighting target areas.

Relevant graphics and simple text—we think it's the way to go for work instructions.

Labels: aliteracy, illustrations, visual work instructions

As you can imagine, here at Bishop we're concerned with readability when it comes to our work instructions, nursing procedures, technical manuals . . . all of our documents. Our graphics and other visual support play a huge role in aiding comprehension, but they play no role in readability statistics. And because readability only considers text, it doesn't take into consideration the worker's circumstances. Physical distractions, job pressures and a host of other issues could complicate the environment at the time the user needs to read the instruction.

That's why we focus on clear and simple directions when we write text. We assume workers are under harsh conditions and that they want information quickly, which is why we try to write to an easy readability value.

Our suggestions for improving readability in work instructions include:

• Writing in active—not passive—voice.
• Using strong verbs instead of excessive adjectives.
• Getting rid of unnecessary words like the or a.
• Using simple words.
• Naming the parts and processes with the same terms our clients use.
• Using titles and subtitles that help users navigate quickly.
• Deleting the words we or you.

While I wouldn't want all writing to follow these rules (I do enjoy a good Faulkner novel occasionally), I think they help those who need to read for information now.

I'll say more about the role illustrations play in readability soon.

Labels: illustrations, plain language, readability, visual work instructions