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Video: Designing Job Aids | What a Job Aid Is | Why They Matter | What a Job Aid Isn’t | Common Types | Format Follows Function | Before You Draft | Sources |
In “How to Design Job Aids that Work,” an instructional designer walks through what job aids are, the most common types, and what separates a job aid that helps from one that gets in the way.
What Is A Job Aid?
A job aid is a document that gives someone the information they need to complete a task.
You probably use job aids all the time without calling them that: a recipe, a GPS route, a phone extension list, the instructions that came with a bookshelf. The common thread is timing. You don’t study a job aid ahead of time and put it away — it stays nearby while you work, and you check it as you go.
That’s also why a job aid holds information nobody should have to memorize — the steps for replacing a lost ID, the phone extension for the billing office, the to-do for a shift handoff. None of that needs to live in anyone’s head. It just needs to be easy to find when the task comes up.
You’ll see the same kinds of documents called quick reference guides, reference cards, cheat sheets, or performance support. The labels vary by organization and industry. What makes something a job aid is how it gets used, not what it’s called.
Why Job Aids Matter and What They Do
A job aid exists to solve a real problem, usually a task people keep getting wrong, doing too slowly, or interrupting a coworker to ask about.
If you can’t name that problem, you probably don’t need a job aid. A well-designed job aid makes a task faster and more accurate. A bad one slows people down or leads them astray. Pile on background and nice-to-know details and you lose the reader right when they need speed; make it confusing and it can cause more mistakes than it prevents.
Before drafting, you have to make a set of calls about the reader and the moment they’ll use it:
- What task is the reader in the middle of when they reach for this?
- Where will they be? At a desk, on a shop floor, at home on a laptop, standing at a counter?
- How will they get to it? Taped to a wall, printed on a card, bookmarked in a browser? Anything behind a login or three clicks deep won’t get used mid-task.
- What does the reader already know, and what do they need the document to supply?
Answering these decides what goes on the job aid and what form it takes before you write a word of it.
What a Job Aid Isn’t
A job aid supports people who already know how to do the work. It doesn’t replace training.
If someone genuinely doesn’t understand how a process works, a reference sheet on the wall may not be of use to them. Job aids work best alongside training: the training builds the skill, and the job aid keeps key details at hand when the employee is on the job.
A job aid also isn’t typically a tool in the physical sense. A spatula is something you need to cook pancakes, but the recipe is the job aid — the spatula does the work, and the recipe tells you how.
Format Follows Function
Unlike a recommendation report, a job aid has no standard set of sections. Its form comes from the task, the reader, and the place it gets used.
Because there’s no template to lean on, job aids often require a custom structure and design. Refer to the guidance and procedures on the Structure lecture notes for more information on how to design job aids.
Job aids take many forms. The best form depends on the task. Here are some Common types of job aids.
| Type | When To Use It | Example |
| Checklist | The reader needs to confirm that every item gets done, whether or not the order matters | A beach cleanup list: get supplies, pick up trash, sort and dispose of it |
| Step-by-Step Instructions | The task has to happen in a fixed order | A shift change: brief the incoming shift, complete the log, sign off |
| Quick Reference Guide | The reader needs to look up information quickly, in no particular order | Priya’s front desk card covering lockers, classes, guest passes, equipment, and lost IDs |
| Data Table | The reader needs one value from a larger body of data | A list of phone extensions organized by department |
| Flowchart or Decision Tree | The next step depends on a condition or a choice | A dog groomer checks the pet’s behavior first; an aggressive dog gets a muzzle before grooming continues |
| Script | The reader needs to know what to say in a conversation | A call center response to an unhappy customer: apologize by name, then ask for details |
| Screen Recording | The task happens in software and is easier to show than to describe | A short capture showing how to submit an expense report in the company system |
Checklists and step-by-step instructions are easy to confuse. Both are lists of actions, but only step-by-step instructions require a specific order. A quick reference guide is different from both: the reader jumps to what they need and ignores the rest.
Before You Draft
A short check catches most of the problems that sink a job aid.
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Sources & Further Reading
Everything referenced above, if you want to go to the originals.
- “How to Design Job Aids that Work (for Instructional Design)” (video) — assigned viewing, embedded at the top of this page. Source of the job aid definition, most of the types and examples, what a job aid isn’t, and the design principles in Format Follows Function.
- Stu Pease, “What Is a Job Aid and When Should I Use One?,” Articulate — source of the just-in-time framing, the quick reference guide and screen recording types, and the point that job aids supplement training rather than replace it.
- Lecture Notes: Structure — the Gather Key Info and HATS procedure you’ll use to build your job aid, plus Priya’s reference card as a worked example.
- Allison Rossett and Lisa Schafer, Job Aids and Performance Support (Pfeiffer, 2006) — the standard book-length treatment of the genre, free to borrow through the Internet Archive.