Taking away all of the inkjet printers at patron terminals is a big deal. Among other hurdles, patrons need to be trained, staff need to be trained, and someone has to do the training. People in charge of training need to know how to use whatever they are teaching. This is obvious. A problem occurs though when trainers don’t take into consideration the fact that they are facile with what they are teaching. I’ve been writing a guide (for the staff) to using our new (huge!) networked printer. I have been trying to consider nothing in the printing process obvious. Even so, I’m sure there are places where I could be explaining things a bit better.
One thing I’ve been doing, and I know that this sounds funny, is considering what other people think. Not that I don’t usually but I’m giving people an active role in the preparation of this handout. I made a draft of some instructions and gave them to someone working Circ. I assured her that this wasn’t a test of her skills, but rather of my instruction writing skills. She made it through the process just fine. Also, she really didn’t have any comments on my instructions.
The next woman I asked to go through the process took a little bit longer, and she had some comments. They were quite useful and I altered the document to reflect some of the things she mentioned.
Asking for help whilst preparing this document has not only made the instructions better, but it has also exposed some people to the technology.