Printed Manuals, Online Help and Tutorials

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Printed Manuals, Online Help and Tutorials
MSIT 159 User Interface Design and Development
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System Delivery

• Usually Involves
• Training
• Documentation
• Likely User Audience
• Users
• Operators

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Printed Documentation Types

• Alphabetic command lists
• Quick reference cards
• Brief getting started notes
• Novice user tutorials
• Conversion manuals
• Detailed reference manuals

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Online Documentation

• Man pages
• Help facility
• Tutorials
• Demonstration

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Problems with Most Computer Documentation

• Simply present operator descriptions
• Organized according to system functions, not user
  goals
• Too voluminous for novice users
• Rarely presents complete methods explicitly
• Talks about how system works, not how it can be
  used
• User must problem solve even simple tasks
• Rarely presents selection rules

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Why is reading from computer displays more
difficult than reading from paper?

• Poor fonts
• Low contrast between characters and backgrounds
• Emitted light rather than reflected
• Small displays require frequent page turning
• Display placement too high
• Layout and formatting problems
• Reduced body motion make them more fatiguing
• Displays less familiar than books

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Printed Manual Guidelines

• Let user's task guide organization
• Let user learning process shape sequencing
• Present semantics before syntax
• Keep writing style clean and simple
• Show numerous examples
• Offer meaningful and complete sample sessions
• Draw transition diagrams
• Use advance organizers and summaries
• Provide table of contents, indices, and
  glossaries
• Include list of error messages
• Give credit to all project participants

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Process of Developing Print Manuals

• Use professional writers and copy editors
• Prepare user manuals before implementation
• Review drafts thoroughly
• Field test early drafts
• Provide feedback mechanism to readers
• Revise to reflect changes regularly

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User Documentation Life Cycle

• Develop specifications
• Prototype
• Draft
• Edit
• Review
• Field test
• Publish
• Perform post project review
• Maintain

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• GOMS models provide good starting points for
  writing documentation.

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Guidelines for Using Goals to Organize Task
Oriented Documentation

• Use high level goals as a table of contents
• List high level goals in natural task sequence
• High-frequency goals and critical sub goals
  should be documented fully
• Each user goal should have a complete and
  executable method
• Judgement calls must be used regarding prior user
  knowledge of methods and operators
• Methods should be checked for correctness

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Limitations of GOMS for Documentation

• Only specifies content and organization of
  procedural knowledge
• Does not address readability, pedagogy, layout,
  typography, content, graphics use, etc.

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Advantages of Online Manuals

• Information is available when computer is
  available
• User dont need space to open printed manuals
• Manual updates are low cost
• Electronic indexing allow fast search of manual
• Multimedia help may be beneficial

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Disadvantages of Online Manuals

• Displays may not be as easy to read as print
  manuals
• Each screen contains less info than 1 printed
  page
• Interface operations may confuse novices
• Splitting display among work, help, and tutorials
  leaves less useful screen space
• Additional burden on user

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Online Facilities

• Successively more detailed error explanations
• Instruction on system use
• Examples of correct commands
• Descriptions of current system parameters
• Lists of commands
• News for system users
• List of available user aids

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Guidelines for Preparing Online Help (Kearsley)

• Make help system easy to access and return from
• Make help as specific as possible
• Collect user data to determine what help is
  needed
• Give users control over the level of help
  provided
• Supply different types of help for different
  types of users
• Make help message complete and accurate
• Do not use help to compensate for poor user
  interface design

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Online Implementation

• Word processing documents
• Hypertext
• Unix man pages
• Help menu
• Key words to organize menu driven help
• Context sensitive help
• Balloon help

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Tutorials Guidelines for Developing
Lessons(Steinberg)

• Initial planning - lesson level
• Ripple plans - unit level
• Complete the lesson - lesson level

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Writing the Presentation

• Generate unit goals
• Choose teaching technique based on cognitive goal
  for lesson (recall, comprehension, application,
  analysis, synthesis, evaluation)
• Write script
• Generate questions and exercises

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Checking Lesson for Effectiveness

• Pretest and posttest
• Questionnaires
• Student interviews
• Field trials
• Expert review

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Lesson Review - Pass One

• Check identification information
• Content review
• Check boundary conditions
• Examine instructional technique (tutorial, drill,
  problem solving, game, simulation)
• Technical review
• Supplementary equipment required
• Overall reactions

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Lesson Review - Pass Two

• Content
• Instructional technique (presentation, questions,
  responses, feedback, remediation)
• Lesson management
• Human factors
• Displays