15. Performance Support Guides

All of us have used a performance support guide in some way or another in our daily lives. The next time you put fuel in your car or truck, you will see a list of steps for the user to follow. All fuel pumps provide a brief set of instruction on how to insert your credit card, select the type of fuel you wish, and whether you want a receipt. The prompts are sometimes continued on the screen on the pump. Some prompts even go on to ask if you wish to purchase a car wash as well! Sometimes this information is presented completely with icons or simple pictures, in other instances it is presented as text, and in others as a combination of icons and text. Now that more cars are being powered by electric motors, electric recharging stations will also need to present a performance support guide to ensure that users know how to connect the charging station to their car’s outlet. Most of these users are doing this task for the first time, so that error is always a possibility, and doing it properly is critical for ensuring the recharge has occurred. Refueling or recharging our cars is a simple task that many of us perform on a regular basis, perhaps weekly. One would think we could just remember how to do it, and the information would be unnecessary. There remains the need for providing a performance support guide of some kind, to ensure that the intended activity is done correctly. Without it, there’s always the probability of making an error. This chapter addresses how to adapt a task analysis information to a performance support guide.