To give clear instructions, state the condition that makes the step apply, then the single action, then stop and let the person confirm. The condition lets them check your premise against what they see. One action keeps the load small. The stop gives them room to catch a mistake before it happens, not after.
What makes instructions clear to the person following them?
Clear instructions tell the follower what to do, to which thing, and why it applies now, in words they can check against what is in front of them. The follower needs no knowledge of your reasoning beyond that. If they can act without asking and could spot a wrong premise, the instruction is clear.
People giving instructions usually focus on the action, because the action is what they want. But the follower is acting on something they can see and you cannot, or the reverse. If your picture of their situation is wrong, a perfectly worded action is still the wrong one.
That is the everyday problem a bomb round puts on the table. In Bomb Appétit, the Experts have the manual and never see the bomb; the Defuser sees the bomb and never reads the manual. Every instruction an Expert gives is based on a description they heard a moment ago. If they misheard a color, their instruction is built on a false premise, and only the Defuser can see that.
So a clear instruction has three jobs. It names the target precisely enough that there is only one candidate. It gives one action the follower can do without interpretation. And it exposes the premise, so the follower has a chance to say "that's not what I have". The third job is the one most instructions skip.
The follower also needs to know when the instruction is finished. A trailing "and then..." keeps them waiting for more; a clean stop tells them they can act.
Condition first, action second: ordering a clear instruction
Put the condition before the action. "The last wire is black and there's no yellow, so cut the fourth wire" lets the follower check the first half before they reach the verb. If the condition is wrong, they can stop you. Action first invites them to act before the reason arrives, when it is too late to object.
Order matters because people start acting as soon as they hear a verb. Say "cut the fourth wire, because the last one is black" and a fast Defuser has the cutters moving by "wire". If the last wire was actually blue, the strike happens before the reason is even finished.
Condition first also matches how the manual is written. Every line on the Wires page has the form "If [something is true], cut [a wire]." The list for each wire count is read from the top, stopping at the first line that is true. An Expert who keeps the same order when speaking passes the rule's logic across intact.
This is not a game-only habit. "If the report shows a balance below zero, flag it to finance" is easier to follow, and to question, than "flag it to finance if the report shows a balance below zero". In the first version, the listener is already checking the balance by the time they hear the action.
A worked Wires script in three versions
The Wires module shows three to six wires, counted from the top starting at one. The values below are an invented example; real rules depend on the manual's rule seed. The Defuser has said: "Five wires, from the top: red, white, blue, red, black. Serial ends in four." The Expert's five-wire list reads, in this example:
- If the last wire is black and there are no yellow wires, cut the fourth wire.
- If there is more than one red wire, cut the last blue wire.
- If the last digit of the serial number is odd, cut the first wire.
- Otherwise, cut the second wire.
Version one: read word for word. The Expert reads all four lines aloud, at speed. The Defuser hears "cut the fourth wire", "cut the last blue wire", "cut the first wire" and "cut the second wire" in about ten seconds. Two of the conditions sound true to them. They ask which one applies, and the Expert has to start again. In a worse case, they cut the last blue wire, which here is the third wire, and take a strike.
Version two: trimmed to the action. The Expert works out the answer and says "Cut the fourth wire." That is quicker, and in this example it is right. But suppose the Expert had misheard the bottom wire as blue. Line one would then be false, line two true, and the trimmed instruction would have been "Cut the fifth wire." The Defuser would hear a confident order with nothing in it to check, cut, and take a strike.
Version three: condition, then action. The Expert says "Last wire black, no yellow. So: cut the fourth wire." The Defuser checks the panel, sees black at the bottom and no yellow, says back "Fourth wire, the red one", hears "Yes" and cuts. The module lights green. Had the Expert misheard the bottom wire, the spoken condition would have been wrong, and the Defuser, looking at a black wire, could have said so before cutting.
Version three takes perhaps two seconds longer than version two. It turns the Defuser into a check on the Expert's hearing, which is worth far more.
How long should one clear instruction be?
One clear instruction should hold one action and at most two conditions, said in a breath. That is short enough for the follower to hold while they act. If the step needs more than that, split it into two instructions and wait between them. Length should be measured in things to remember, not in words.
The follower is doing two things at once: holding your sentence and doing the task. Every extra item, such as a second action, a third condition or an aside, competes for the same small space. When it overflows, something drops, usually the part in the middle.
Some modules make the split natural. The Big Button asks for a tap or a hold first. Only if it is a hold does a colored strip light up, and only then can the Expert say when to let go, based on a digit for that strip color. The second instruction cannot be given until the first is done.
Others tempt you to bundle. Tangled Wires can have up to six wires, each with its own cut-or-leave answer. An Expert may want to say "cut one, three and five, leave the rest". Safer is one wire per instruction, each confirmed. The habit is set out in one instruction at a time, then wait, which also covers why the wait matters as much as the split.
Instructions with a fork: if this, then that
When the next step depends on something only the follower can see, give the fork as a question first, then the instruction for the answer. "Is the button red? Then tap it" becomes two turns. Giving both branches at once ("if red, tap; if not, hold") asks the follower to evaluate and remember both, which doubles the load.
Forks appear whenever the instruction-giver lacks a fact. On the bomb, that is constant. The Expert may need to know whether the bomb has more than two batteries, whether a lit indicator with a certain label is present, or whether the serial number's last digit is odd.
The cleanest approach is to collect the fact first, then give one instruction. Ask "How many batteries?", hear "Three", then say "More than two batteries, so hold the button." The follower never has to choose between branches.
Sometimes you cannot ask first, for example when the fact only appears after an action. The Big Button strip only lights after the button is held. In that case, state the fork as a sequence: "Hold the button and tell me the strip color." That is one action plus one report, and the next instruction waits for the answer.
Avoid stacking forks. "If red and more than two batteries, tap, unless there's a lit indicator, in which case..." is a manual line read aloud, not an instruction. Evaluate it yourself and give the result.
How do you give clear instructions to someone who cannot see the page?
When the follower cannot see your page, translate the rule into their view. Use the words for what they can see, the positions they would count, and the names you agreed. Never refer to "line three" or "the second column" of your document. They have the object; you have the rules. Speak about the object.
This is the core of the Expert's job. The manual is organised for lookup: lists by wire count, tables by color, columns of glyphs. None of that structure exists on the Defuser's side. "It's the second rule" means nothing to them.
Translation goes both ways. A Defuser describing a panel uses their own picture, and the Expert has to map it to the manual's terms. Fast Experts know their pages well enough to make that mapping quickly, and the guide to finding the right line while the clock runs covers how a manual page is laid out for that kind of lookup.
The same applies at work. Someone walking a colleague through a settings screen over the phone should say "the blue button at the top right, labelled Save" rather than "step four in the guide". The guide is yours. The screen is theirs.
The instruction mistake: reading the whole rule out loud
Reading the whole rule aloud hands your job to the follower. They hear every condition and every action, most of which do not apply, and have to sort them while listening. The instruction-giver has the page and the time to evaluate it. Do that work, then pass on only the line that applies, with its condition.
The urge to read everything comes from caution. The Expert worries about getting it wrong, so they share the whole rule and let the Defuser help. But the Defuser cannot see the page and cannot easily hold a list of four conditions. The shared rule becomes shared confusion, as version one of the Wires script showed.
There is a better way to involve the follower: state the condition you are relying on and let them check it. That uses their unique view, the bomb, rather than asking them to do your reading.
Under a running clock this habit matters even more. Each strike speeds up the countdown, and the temptation to rush grows. Communicating under pressure as the timer speeds up covers which phrases hold up when time is short. When the follower is unsure about your instruction, asking clarifying questions before acting is the other half of the exchange. You can try the three versions yourself on First bite, the mission with a single Wires module at the top of the missions page.