Quick-Cards: My approach

We've all been there, we've all experienced the introduction of a new system at some point in our working lives. Along with the customary training, we're handed a colorful, concise, how-to step-by-step procedure to complete one or several tasks in the new system; all printed on heavy-stock paper (for durability and to convey the importance of this card). In short, it is  material that users are to keep handy and refer to it as they start to use the new system. Hypothetically, it is also used for new hires long after the system implementation.

Having experienced a few of these, I began to develop my own. A few revisions later, I arrived at what I currently use--the Quick Card. What follows is a description of the template I follow.

#1. Every Quick-Card needs to fit on a single PowerPoint slide. It is a tight unit of information about a specific procedure. It must contain enough information for both new and experienced users. Yes, even experienced users forget. Suppose someone is promoted and he/she stops doing that procedure. After a few months of no use, even experienced users forget.

#2. The Quick-Card has 3 main elements:
A) Header
B) How-to text on the left pane and
C) Corresponding screenshots on the right pane

A) Header: This is the title of the Quick-Card. It can have company, system, screen name, etc.

B) How-To Text: The left pane itself is further divided into several sections:

   > Objective: This is a one to two sentence statement that describes what you're trying to do. In other words, this is the "what".

  > Intro: Again, one to two sentence statement that describes the why of the procedure. This provides background to the task or the "why".

  > The How-to procedure: This section is the actual step-by-step description of where the user clicks, types, etc. Each step is numbered and corresponds to the screenshots on the right pane. It is very important that this section not exceed 7 steps. The lower the number, the better. If the procedure has more than 7 steps, it is no longer a Quick-Card; at that point, you should consider a video.

  > Further details: This section tells the user what to expect after they've completed the procedure or it provides guidance should they not be successful in completing it.


C) The screenshots pane: This pane contains a screenshot or close-ups corresponding to the steps in the How-to section. Ensure the tags style match to ensure users are not confused by other numbers/text on the screenshots.

That's it, that's what I use. Whether you use this model or it gives you ideas for your own, I'd love to hear from you.

Below are a couple of examples I've done.