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[Tombsice]

So I tried to play Dwarf Fortress and that ended preaty badly for some of the dwarves. No, nothing big and angry killed them, the problem was far more elementaly of my own doing.
I don't know how to use stairs. In my thinking of "hey, stuff can fall down and hurt my dwarves. If only I could do something to prevent that. I know I will use stairs in an odd way, perfect plan, no way it could back fire." I got one miner drowned(there was an aquifer and I was trying to figure out how to get past it) and anouther resorting to hunting vermin(There was plenty of food he just didn't have ascess, didn't want to see it trough so I abounded the site and then deleted the world, it had way to many aquifers anyway). Stairs just don't work the way I would think they would(magical portals that deliver you up or down a Z level).
Any advice on how to ensure that my poor understading of stairs won't kill again?
I would prefer if someone could tell me some sort of design to prevent falling objects from striking every thing on the stairs on their way but I also want to understand these arcane constructs caled stairs.

[utunnels]

Well, my advice, just use downward stairs and up/down stairs.
Usually you dig your way from above, so just make a downward stairs (d j) on your floor then (d i) all the way down to your destination.

Mixing up and down stairs will sometimes trap your dwarves if you make a mistake.

Mind you, you can also build staris (b C), by which you can fix your mistakes. Just dig out the wrong stairs (d h) and build your correct version in their places.

[Max™]

I have never had an issue with falling items on stairs and have long since switched to exclusively using them for up/down transport.

I had a couple of times where people fighting fell a decent distance. I install hatches now and then and it works great. Use a light wood and you can have dorfs fall several z levels without getting hurt, but they rarely drop stuff or fall in my experience.

[Miuramir]

Stairs just don't work the way I would think they would(magical portals that deliver you up or down a Z level).

I'm not sure why you would think that; but it's fairly straightforward and not at all magical.  You may want to review the Stairs entry on the DF wiki.  Unless you are *quite* sure what you are doing, always use Up/Down (combined) stairs.  In the most general sense, if a dwarf needs to move between levels via stairs, they need to stand on a stair that is valid for the direction they want to go, and can then take a move action to move to the matching square that points back the way they came. 

One concept that can be helpful is to have an "Endless Stair"-inspired master vertical access that connects to all levels.  Even if it isn't your main access (and it probably shouldn't be for efficiency; mark it as low traffic or even restricted), it provides an emergency exit if something goes wrong with stairs or ramps elsewhere.  If you see dwarves starting to use it, it gives you early warning of pathing problems elsewhere in your fort, before dwarves start starving, tantruming, etc.  It's recommended to put doors on each level between the main level and the emergency stairs, so in case of flooding they can be locked and bypassed while leaving the stairs useful.  (Magma-proof doors if you're feeling particularly clever, and enough space on each side of the door to install a constructed wall in case of serious issues.)