Friday, June 13, 2008

Instructional design - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Came upon this set of instructions somewhere. Me thinks this is an excellent example of the good, the bad, and the ugly in instructional design:
USER-FRIENDLY
C:\ DUR
Command not found. Try retyping
USER-HELPFUL
C:\ DUR
I don't understand DUR. Do you mean DIR ?
USER-UNFRIENDLY
C:\ DUR C:\ DUR C:\ DUR C:\ DUR
USER-HOSTILE
C:\ DUR
Ha! A mistake! I'm sure you meant to say FORMAT, so that's what I'll do.
USER-INDIFFERENT
C:\ DUR DUR?
USER-PATRONIZING
C:\ DUR
Now, that's not quite right is it? Let's try again; this time, use the manual that the nice salesperson gave you when you bought me.
USER-OBSEQUIOUS
C:\ DUR
I'm so very, very sorry but I don't understand that. I'm sure it was my fault, but if you would please try again I'll do my best.
USER-SARCASTIC
C:\ DUR
Well, Look who's made a mistake then. Very unusual, I don't think.
USER-INSULTING
C:\ DUR
Fuck off
C:\ DIR
Fuck off
USER-SMUG
C:\ DUR
No
C:\ DOR
Nope
C:\ HELP
No C:\ PLEASE
Not unless you give me a 300Mb hard disk to live on
C:\ BASTARD
Abuse will get you nowhere
USER-ANALYTICAL
C:\ DUR
What makes you say that?
C:\ A TYPING MISTAKE
How long have you been making these mistakes?
C:\ BANANAS
Do you like bananas?
C:\ I LOVE THEM
Why do you bring up the subject of love....etc?
USER-McDONALD
May I help you please?
C:\ DUR
I'm sorry but that command is not available at this time. Have a nice day.
C:\ DIR
Will that be an MS-DOS directory?
C:\ YES
To read here, or for printout to take away?
C:\ HERE
Thank you. Have a nice day.
USER-MEGALOMANIAC
C:\ DUR
Don't bother me with trivial requests. I'm busy.

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Resolving PDF Problems!

You need to send that PDF file by close of business to your product manager/SME and the file won't just print. What do you do?

Listed here is a set of common PDF issues and solutions:

Pain: When you right-click a Microsoft Office file to convert to Adobe PDF, the application returns the message, "Missing PDFMaker files," and does not create an Adobe PDF file.

Solution: Remove Adobe PDF from the Disabled Items list in the Microsoft Office application.
To manage your Disabled Items list in a Microsoft Office application:
1. Open the Microsoft Office application (Word, Excel, Publisher).
2. Choose Help > About [the application name].
3. Click Disabled Items.
4. Select Adobe PDF from the list, and clickEnable.
5. Quit the Microsoft Office application, and then restart it.

If the error message continues to appear after you enable Adobe PDF, then check the security level for macros in Word:
1. Choose Tools > Macro > Security.
2. In the Security dialog, click the Security tab.
3. Choose Medium or High.
4. Do one of the following:
-- If you chose Medium, then click OK.
-- If you chose High, then continue with steps 5 through 7.
5. Click the Trusted Publishers tab.
6. Check Trust all installed add-ins and templates.
7. Click OK.

PDFMaker and the right-click context menu should function again.

For more, see http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/microsites/microsite.do

Pain: Images look fine in MS Word, but after converting to PDF, image quality is poor.

Solution: Save your image in JPG or TIFF format and embed the image into your Word document to publish using Adobe PDF printer. PNGs are not suitable for word to PDF conversion, TIFFS work much better. Use high quality print setting while converting to PDF. Also, standardize the resolution settings of your desktop (1024*768) and the DPI setting in your screen capture software.


Watch this space for more!

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