HCD.18:0 - Use This When

Use this pattern when you must decide what to repair, select, or rely on in instructional material, but the available evaluation cannot distinguish the material’s useful contribution from an attractive presentation, a correct answer supplied by an expert, or help supplied by a teacher.

An editor preparing a worksheet, a teacher choosing a worked explanation, and a designer evaluating a connected course route face the same first question: what work should this material help this audience do, with what support? Write that promise and one task that would expose a consequential failure. Then check whether an existing specification already answers it.

The first useful result is either a compatible specification ready for evaluation, or a new specification that tells an evaluator what to inspect, how to interpret observations, and what decision each difference can change. The specification concerns the instructional material in its declared use. Wider human capability development remains outside this construction task.

If a compatible specification is already available, use it directly through HCD.19. If the question is one person’s performance, transfer, or retention, use HCD.11, HCD.12, or HCD.13. A professional reference used to make a decision is evaluated for that reference use; it acquires a learning-task requirement only when it promises instruction.