Manuals for the Elderly: Which Information Cannot Be Missed?    

Elderly people seem to encounter more problems than people from other age groups do, when using consumer electronics products and their accompanying manuals. This may be due to the absence of some kinds of information. In this study the effects of the absence of different information types in instructions on action performance were explored for different age groups. Younger (aged 20-30 y.) and elderly (aged 60-70 y.) participants installed a VCR with the help of the manual, while working aloud. The absence of goal information, consequence information and identification information in the instructions proved to have a negative effect on task performance, especially for the elderly participants. When one of these information types was missing in the instructions, the elderly performed more actions incorrectly than when the information was stated explicitly.

Van Horen, F.M., C. Jansen, A. Maes and L. G. M. Noordman. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Elderly

Nobody Reads Manuals, Do They?

We technical writers have a mantra that we mutter quietly whenever someone asks an obvious question about how to use our software: 'RTFM.' But though Reading The (ahem) 'Fine' Manual would often solve the problem--assuming the purchaser actually received one of those increasingly rare printed manuals with the software--only technical writers seeking inspiration on how to do their own jobs better can be relied upon to read product documentation. To make matters worse, many of us admit that we'd rather play with a product, hoping to figure out what to do, than use the documentation.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. TECHWR-L (2000). Articles>Documentation>Usability

Orr's Aphorisms About Tech Writing

A collection of hints and advice about documentation and usability from David Orr (one of our Institute instructors and the founder of the first usability lab in Chicago).

Abbott, Christine. Northern Illinois University. Articles>Documentation>Usability

Putting Service and Support Documentation Online—Avoiding the Perils and Pitfalls  

Customer satisfaction studies are valuable tools for developing documentation strategies. Information developers at Compaq Computer Corporation used a satisfaction study to develop a comprehensive strategy for producing online service and support documentation.

Siemers, Linda K., Michael R. Cloud and JoAnn T. Hackos. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Usability

Readable Computer Documentation    

A retrospective look shows earlier advice still relevant to both predicting and producing readable writing. For prediction, refined readability formulas with stronger criterion passages and updated familiar -word lists have appeared, although the computerization of readability tests sometimes encourages misapplying or misinterpreting them when screening text. For production, attention to sentence construction, word characteristics, and information density remains relevant to both drafting and revising computer documentation for readability, especially since reading speed and reader preference often interact with comprehension in practical settings.

Klare, George R. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Documentation>Assessment>Usability

Recipe for Designing Usable Documentation

What makes documentation usable? Usable documentation accommodates the way I think. Hart summarizes his principles for define 'user-friendly documentation.'

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Usability Interface (2006). Articles>Documentation>Usability

Restructuring Your User Information  

Details a process for improving the usability, consistency, and organization of user information within businesses that maintain medium to large documentation libraries.

Richards, Charles. Intercom (2003). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Usability

Rethinking User-Centered Information Development  

Often in the computer industry there is a tendency to provide information about the features of a system. However, customers usually purchase the system based on knowledge of its features, when they receive the product they need information on how to accomplish tasks. Developing task-oriented information requires a shift in perspective from what the computer technology can do, to what your customers want to do with the technology. The resulting information must be usercentered rather than feature-driven. These types of customer requirements demand afresh development approach.

Stertzbach, Lori A. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Usability

Seven (Plus or Minus Two) Things to Remember About Producing Online Documentation  

Producing online documentation requires a new view of a technical communicator's roles, skills, and responsibilities.

Titta, Catherine M. and John E. Johnson. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Online>Usability

Simple Ways to Improve the Usability of Help

According to Jacob Nielsen's How Users Read on the Web, usability of web content can be improved drastically by making content more scannable. Many of his ideas would apply equally well to online help. So, how can technical writers leverage this information to make the help for their product more usable?

Helpscribe (2008). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Help

Six Slick Tests for Docs and Help

Usability testing isn’t just for software and web sites. Testing documentation can ensure that it includes — and accurately conveys — all the information users expect and need. Testing gives you accurate information on how well your documentation and Help work. It can even uncover problems that are better solved by changing the interface.

User Interface Engineering (1998). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Testing

Social or Philosophical Issues Related to the Design and Delivery of User Assistance

User assistance is defined as a form of assistance that is provided to users of products to help them use the products more easily and efficiently. In the Information Technology industry, a product is a software product/application that users use to perform specific business functions. Users of these products/applications use them differently, based on their social and philosophical environment, their cultural context, their learnability and a number of other factors. While the same user assistance must necessarily be designed and delivered to the users of a product, because all users use a particular product/application to perform similar tasks, user assistance can be designed and delivered differently to users, based on their social and philosophical environment. This could enable users from diverse social and philosophical backgrounds use the same products/applications more effectively.

Das, Pradipto. Usability Interface (2007). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Help

Software Usability and Documentation

This article shows how a user-centred approach to software design can reduce the requirement for documentation. It lists Jakob Nielsen's usability heuristics, and for each one, shows how following the heuristic can reduce the requirement for user documentation.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2003). Articles>Documentation>Software>Usability

Software User Assistance Project Management

This article takes a look at a methodology for developing and managing a Software User Assistance (UA) System, a way of doing things in a structured manner. It provides a complete walkthrough for managers responsible for designing, developing, and managing a software product’s user assistance system. The software’s UA system could comprise of both paper-based user manuals and online help systems.

Ferris, Tamara. Klariti. Articles>Documentation>Usability>Help

Some Stategies for Addressing the Changing Audience  

'Know your user!' is the first thing every aspiring technical communicator learns. Everyone agrees that understanding the technical skills and needs of your audience is essential to producing high quality technical documentation. However, knowing exactly who your audience is and what they need from documentation is no longer an easy task. The increase in international markets, multiculturalism in America, end the number of people using software products for the first time all mean that the audience you knew so well a short time ago may not be the same audience using your documentation today. As technical communicators, we can no longer assume that our users' language and technical skills remain stable over a long period of time. How to assess and meet the needs of a changing audience is a challenge many technical communicators face today.

Lopes, Jeff and Kimberly E. Willis. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Audience Analysis>Usability

Strategies for Usability: Putting ISO Standards to Practice  

Is your documentation and training a solution for complex product design? Whether designing software, hardware, documentation, online help, or a telecommunication network, a strategy for usability is essential to user-friendly design. Every organization has a product life cycle but not every organization is user-focused because of absence of a usability process. Where do you begin? This paper describes two ISO standards that I have used as a strategy for usability, and accompanies a presentation that demonstrates how to put the standards to practice.

Dick, David J. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Standards

Structured Heuristic Evaluation of Online Documentation  

Increasingly, online documentation is the only documentation that companies provide with their products. To minimize customer resistance and encourage its use, online documentation (PDFs and help systems) must be at least as easy to use as a printed book. This paper presents a structured process for evaluating the usability of online documentation, based on a list of heuristics for navigating through and finding content.

Kantner, Laurie, Roberta Shroyer and Stephanie L. Rosenbaum. Tec-Ed, Inc. (2002). Articles>Documentation>Usability

Task Based Documentation and Good User Interface Go Hand in Hand

As I write the 'how to' documentation based upon the in-process design, the weaknesses of my original design become apparent and I go back and forth from writing text to designing the software until it all flows.

Ferlazzo, Ellen Lawson. Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Interface>Usability

Technisch Schrijvers Schuwen Onderzoek: Toch Kunnen Onderzoeksresultaten Praktisch Toepasbaar Zijn  

This article, which appeared in the Dutch journal Tekst[blad], describes four recent studies that are relevant to help developers, and suggests how help developers can use the knowledge gained from those studies to improve the performance support systems they build.

Hayhoe, George F. Tekst[blad] (2000). (Dutch) Articles>Documentation>Usability>Technical Writing

Test That Information!  

Software products are tested. Hardware products are tested. But, how often and how thoroughly are the information deliverables tested? In the rush to bring products to market, the full and thorough testing of information often gets overlooked. Last minute changes are crammed in. Procedures are not thoroughly tested. Even something as simple as testing links can be ignored due to lack of time or resources.

Crawford, Vanadis. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Testing

Transforming Your Company to a Usability Culture  

Documentation is a finger in the eroding dam of an unusable product.

Ames, Andrea L. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2002). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Workplace

Usability and Quality: Partners in Achieving Effective Documentation

When we began discussing this joint issue of Usability Interface and DocQment, we quickly realized that no concise definitions for either usability or quality existed: in fact, there were many definitions for both terms. A query to a usability professionals’ mailing list for a definition produced many varied responses from which a brief working definition of usability can be distilled: A usable product is one that is learnable, efficient, memorable, error-averse, and satisfying. In other words, usability is a characteristic of a product or document. Defining quality is no easier: there are also a variety of answers. A brief working definition might be: Quality documentation is documentation presented in an easy-to-use, straightforward manner with complete glossaries and indexes.

Robinson, Ralph E. and Dick Miller. Usability Interface (2000). Articles>Documentation>Usability

Usability is Everybody's Business  

Different types of usability tests can be performed at different phases in the product development cycle for different reasons. Writers can plan and implement a usability test and then incorporate recommendations into their documentation, thereby improving its usability. You can improve the usability of your documentation by performing one or more types of usability tests, no matter the size of the product or the time frame involved.

Corbin Nichols, Michelle, Judith R. Fisher, S. Dawn Achee, Julia C. Stovall, David J. Dixon and Jane Emans Jesser. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Planning

Usability Testing and Editing Online Documentation: Where's the Connection?  

Through the completion of an independently researched and developed academic proposal, this author demonstrated the need for change in academic instruction and the need for working technical communicators to extend their skills by recognizing the connection between usability testing and editing online documentation. In short, the underlying connection between these two processes is that, in order to edit online documentation effectively, the editor must know the basics of usability. This paper discusses the background, the methodology, the results, and the implementation of this research project.

Giordano, Jennifer L. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Testing

Usability Testing of Medical Instrument Instruction Manuals  

This panel will discuss usability analysis, user testing, and revision of a medical instruments manual. The study showed that a hidden audience constituted the real users of the manual and that that audience served as an unintended intermediary between the writers of the manual and the users of the instruments. Usability testing showed the merits of a design for the manual that served both the intended and unintended audiences.

Beckmann, Christopher P., Nancy L. Bayer, and Robert Krull. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Biomedical>Usability