Audience and Instructions

When we usually think of audience we think of who is listening or reading what we produce. While this is true, it changes how you should speak or how you should write. What you produce needs to be aimed at the audience and have intention for them. As Lannon tells us in the reading, you need to ask yourself questions like "Are the readers superiors or subordinates?", "What do they already know about the topic?", "How much do they care?", and some important questions like "How may cultural differences play a role?"

Instructions are a specific type of rhetoric in that there is no need to persuade, the intent is to instruct. This also changes how the document needs to be prepared. The intention is to teach the audience how to do a specific task or how to use a product. Lannon mentions that for ethical and legal reasons, companies want people to use the product ethically and safely. One must also know why people want this information and how they will use it. Do they need step-by-step instructions or is the information something they can read and instantly understand?

While taking the audience into consideration, one must think about the technical background of those reading the instructions. For example, if you wanted to instruct someone on how to upgrade RAM in a computer, you wouldn't just say "Open your computer and remove the old RAM" because although some computer-savvy people may know how to do that, the everyday computer user would have no idea where to begin. Culture also needs to be considered as different cultures have different ways they like to obtain information. Lannon gives us the example of German people and how they value thoroughness and complexity.

Finally, Lannon gives us a checklist to ensure our instructions are right for the audience.

• Content - too much or too little?
• Organization - is it hard to follow?
• Page design - Too much going on? Too many steps? Too big paragraphs?
• Ethical/Legal/Cultural considerations - Cross-cultural problems? Distortion of facts?

If we follow Lannon's guidelines, instructions should not only appeal to the audience, but help them through the process easily without any distortion of facts and making it easy to follow.