how it works
How Step Cards work
A card deck is a private page that holds your cards. There is no account and no email: the link is the key, so keep it somewhere safe (a bookmark, or a note to yourself).
- 1
Start a deck
Give it a name if you like ("Mom's computer") and your own note for the last screen of every walk-through ("Still stuck? Call Sam."). You get a private link. Anyone who has that link can change the deck, so share the walk link instead.
- 2
Write a card
Pick the device, then write one action a row. Each row has three boxes: Do this, You will see (so they know it worked) and If it goes wrong. Or copy a starter card and change it.
- 3
Read the check
Every card is checked when you save it:
- about 49 computer words that often confuse people, each with a plainer way to say it (marked with a highlighter);
- steps over 20 words;
- steps that ask for two things at once ("open it and click Save", "then");
- steps with no "You will see";
- cards over 12 steps;
- a reading grade, by the Flesch-Kincaid formula (0.39 × words per sentence + 11.8 × syllables per word − 15.59). Syllables are counted by a simple rule, so the grade is an estimate. Aim for 8 or lower.
The check is a guide, not a rule: you know the person. Nothing is sent anywhere else and no AI reads your cards.
- 4
Add pictures
After you save a card, add a screenshot or photo to any step. Big screenshots are shrunk in your browser before they are sent; the server keeps a plain JPEG copy (no location or camera details) that only your deck's links can show.
- 5
Hand it over
Big print fills a letter page with large steps and pictures. Pocket card fits a 4 × 6 index card. Walk me through it shows one step a screen with Back and Next. With the Card Pass, a walk link lets the person you help open your cards without being able to change them.
Never write a password or PIN on a card. Anyone with the link can read it. The editor refuses lines that look like "password: ...".