© 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Addison Wesley is an imprint of Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction Fifth Edition Ben Shneiderman & Catherine Plaisant in collaboration with Maxine S. Cohen and Steven M. Jacobs Slides revised by students T. Kelly, N. Jordan, and A. Ruud for CS 420 Fall 2012 at UNR CHAPTER 12: User Documentation and Online Help

1-2 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Outline Introduction Online vs Paper Documentation Reading from Paper vs from Displays Shaping the Contents of Documentation Accessing Documentation Online Tutorials & Animated Demos Online Communities for User Assistance Development Process Guidelines 12-2

1-3 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Introduction When it comes to learning about computer systems many people experience anxiety, frustration, and disappointment 12-3

1-4 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Introduction Even though increasing attention is being paid to improving interface design, complex systems can still benefit from both paper and online help Forms of paper user manuals: –Installation manuals –Brief “get started” notes –Tutorials –Detailed reference manuals –Quick reference cards 12-4

1-5 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Installation manual 12-5

1-6 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Getting Started 12-6

1-7 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Tutorials 12-7

1-8 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Reference Manual 12-8

1-9 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Quick Reference Card 12-9

1-10 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Introduction Online materials –Online help –Context-sensitive help –Online tutorial –Animated demonstration –FAQs –Online communities, newsgroups, listservers, , chat, and instant messaging User’s Goal PaperOnline I want to buy itSales brochure, fact sheetAnimated demonstration I want to learn itTutorial Manual, tutorial, guide, animated demonstration I want to use itUser manual Manual, help, context-sensitive help I want to solve a problemFAQ Help, FAQ, online community 12-10

1-11 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online Help 12-11

1-12 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Context-Sensitive Help 12-12

1-13 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online Tutorial 12-13

1-14 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Animated Demonstration 12-14

1-15 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Animated Demonstration 12-15

1-16 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. FAQ 12-16

1-17 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online Community Help 12-17

1-18 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online Community Help 12-18

1-19 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Introduction Taxonomy of user documentation, online help, and tutorials

1-20 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Paper versus online manuals There are many reasons to have online manuals –Physical advantages –Navigation features –Interactive services –Economic advantages 12-20

1-21 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Paper versus online manuals However, these advantages can be compromised by potentially serious negative side effects –Displays may not be as readable as paper manuals –Each display may contain substantially less information than a sheet of paper –The user interface of online help systems may be novel and confusing to novices –The extra mental effort required for navigating through many screen may interfere with concentration and learning, and annotation can be difficult –Splitting the display between work and help or tutorial windows reduces the space for work displays –Small devices such as cell phones do not have enough display space to provide online help 12-21

1-22 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Reading from paper versus from displays Numerous studies have found 15% to 30% slower task times for comprehension or proofreading of text on computer displays, compared to on paper Potential Disadvantages in Reading from Displays: –Poor fonts, especially on low resolution displays –Low contrast between characters and the background –Fuzzy character boundaries –Emitted light from displays may be more difficult to read by than reflected light from paper 12-22

1-23 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Reading from paper versus from displays Potential Disadvantages in Reading from Displays (continued): –Glare may be greater on displays –Screen flicker can be a problem –Curved display surface may be problem –Small displays require more frequent page turning –Reading distance can be greater than for paper 12-23

1-24 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Reading from paper versus from displays Potential Disadvantages in Reading from Displays (continued): –Displays are fixed in place –Display placement may be too high for comfortable reading –Layout and formatting problems –Reduced hand and body motions with displays as compared to paper may be fatiguing –Rigid posture for displays may also be fatiguing –Unfamiliarity of displays and the anxiety that the image may disappear can increase stress 12-24

1-25 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Bad Fonts 12-25

1-26 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Bad Contrast 12-26

1-27 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Bad Character AA 12-27

1-28 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Screen Glare 12-28

1-29 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Shaping the content of manuals Traditionally, training and reference materials are often written by junior members of the team –Manuals were often poorly written –Not suited to the background of the users –Delayed or incomplete –Not tested adequately The benefits of well-designed manuals include shorter learning times, better user performance, increased user satisfaction, and few calls for support The “active user paradox” –Users’ eagerness to conduct meaningful activities often stops them from spending time “just” learning, and therefore their skills remain mediocre

1-30 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. User manual guidelines based on practice and empirical studies (Carroll et al, 1998) 12-30

1-31 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. The user manual for Adobe Reader®

1-32 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. The discovery tool Spotfire™ provides examples that guide users while they learn to use the interface 12-32

1-33 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. How highlighting, fonts etc. helps the user Two pages from the Quick Start guide from RefWorks.com, an online research management, writing, and collaboration tool. Different-sized fonts and different colors are used to help the user scan the material, and large letters (A, B, C, etc.) are used to guide the user through the material. Helpful hints are also indicated (

1-34 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Shaping the content of manuals Minimal manuals encourage active involvement with hands-on experiences Carroll's guided exploration –choose an action-oriented approach –anchor the tool in the task domain –support error recognition and recovery –support reading to do, study, and locate Show numerous well-chosen screen prints that demonstrate typical uses Table of contents and index required Glossaries for clarifying technical terms Appendices for error messages 12-34

1-35 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Organization and writing style Precise statements of educational objectives Present concepts in a logical sequence with increasing order of difficulty Ensure that each concept is used in subsequent sections Avoid forward references Construct sections with approximately equal amounts of new material 12-35

1-36 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Organization and writing style (cont’d) Need sufficient examples and complete sample sessions Choice of words and phrases important Style guides for organizations attempt to ensure consistency and high quality Writing style should match users' reading ability 12-36

1-37 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help Kearsley's guidelines for online help systems: –Make the help system easy to access and easy to return from –Make help as specific as possible –Collect data to determine what help is needed –Give users as much control as possible over the help system –Make help messages accurate and complete –Do not use help to compensate for poor interface design 12-37

1-38 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help Online Manuals –Reproduction of printed manuals online paper page layouts may not convert well dealing with figures problematic attractive if users have large enough display (full page) close match between printed and online versions useful 12-38

1-39 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help Online Manuals (cont’d) –Enhanced by special online features string search multiple indices multiple tables of contents tables of figures electronic bookmarks electronic annotations hypertext traversal automatic history keeping 12-39

1-40 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help Online Manuals (cont’d) –Most effective if manuals are redesigned to fit the electronic medium to take advantage of multiple windows text highlighting color sound animation string search with relevance feedback 12-40

1-41 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help Online Manuals (cont’d) –Properly designed table of contents that can remain visible to side of text page vital –Novices need tutorials –Intermittent knowledgeable users can handle concise descriptions of interface syntax and semantics –Keyword lists improved by clustering into meaningful categories 12-41

1-42 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help Online Help –Traditionally, little information about how to assemble actions to perform tasks –Users expect to be able to search the full text of online documents –Expanding and contracting table of contents can be combined with search –The online help and support center for Microsoft Vista contains articles/topics and search options –An answer wizard can respond to natural language requests 12-42

1-43 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help (cont.) 12-43

1-44 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help Context-sensitive help –User-controlled, interactive object help Small pop-up box Dedicated portion of the display –Intelligent help: users interaction history, a model of user population, and a representation of their tasks to make assumptions about what users want Development of intelligent help systems face serious usability challenges Clippit –Hybrid approaches Initiative is shared between the user and system Unobtrusive advice from system, but requires space 12-44

1-45 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved

1-46 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help (cont.) 12-46

1-47 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help (cont.)

1-48 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online manuals and help (cont.) This figure is from the Palm Beach County, FL web site ( Note the “breadcrumbs” near the top to explain how the user got to this page (Website Information), and the list of common icons provided on the right to familiarize novice users with the symbols used on the web site.

1-49 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Special Populations International and cross-cultural Issues Older adult users Users with disabilities Colorblind people 12-49

1-50 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Special Populations The National Institute for Health’s site for seniors ( has controls to adjust the text size, adjust the contrast, and turn speech on or off. The font used is a sans-serif font, and the font size is larger than the typical size used on the Web. Several ways are provided to navigate through the information (alphabetical, grouping by category, etc.).

1-51 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online tutorials, demonstrations, and animations Online tutorials –Vary based on complexity and user time commitment –Successful designs provide clear challenges, helpful tools, and excellent feedback –User does not have to keep shifting attention between the terminal and the instructional material 12-51

1-52 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online tutorials, demonstrations, and animations (cont’d) Online tutorials –A good environment to carry out practice tasks Representative of what the user might do on their own Can work alone at an individual pace and without the embarrassment of mistakes made before a human instructor or fellow students –Can be as simple as start-up tips With the option to disable, of course 12-52

1-53 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online tutorials, demonstrations, and animations (cont’d) Dynamap is a multi-layered interface with three levels. Level 1, shown here, consists only of a map. Sticky notes introduce the main functions and example tasks. The “show me” buttons initiate animated demonstrations that activate the interface itself. Users can advance through the demonstration step by step or execute the commands themselves, following the directions. A sticky note also points to the buttons allowing users to move to Levels 2 and 3.

1-54 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online tutorials, demonstrations, and animations (cont’d) Demonstration systems –Distributed on CD-ROM/DVD or over Internet –Designed to attract potential users or instruct customers –Typically show off system features using animation, color graphics, sound, etc. –User-interface requirements are to capture and maintain user interest convey information build positive product image 12-54

1-55 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online tutorials, demonstrations, and animations (cont’d) Demonstration systems –Typical controls automatic or manual pacing length of demonstration (short versus in-depth) stop, replay, skip subtitles 12-55

1-56 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online tutorials, demonstrations, and animations (cont’d) Demonstration systems (cont’d) –A screen capture animation is easy to produce with standard tools such as Camtasia –These animations should be backed up with a textual description or be segmented to ensure understanding –Games often have a short demonstration E.g., arcade games 12-56

1-57 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online tutorials, demonstrations, and animations (cont’d) This is a screen capture from part of the priceline demo available from Autodemo ( The user can choose whether to listen to the demo or view the demo with explanatory text. This is Section 2 of 9 provided as part of the demo. On the right, there is a pop-up box with help and further explanation.

1-58 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online communities for user assistance Help networks using –sent to designated help desk or staff person –sent to general list within organization –traditional ways 12-58

1-59 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online communities for user assistance (cont’d) Help networks via discussion board –There are both official and unofficial variations –Users post their problems, and other users/ professionals help them Users must publicly expose their lack of knowledge Risk of getting incorrect advice –Frequently asked questions (FAQ) lists for newcomers 12-59

1-60 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online communities for user assistance (cont’d) Official boards are usually funded by a company and moderated by its employees –Microsoft actively encourages it 12-60

1-61 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online communities for user assistance (cont.) Unofficial boards are community-run, and self-moderating –communal approach means low cost for official software maintenance teams – may have better response times due to higher number of users 12-61

1-62 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online communities for user assistance (cont.) 12-62

1-63 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Online communities for user assistance (cont’d) Google Tech Talk about StackOverflow – IQ&t=12m54shttp:// IQ&t=12m54s 12-63

1-64 © 2010 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Development process guidelines 12-64