1 Technical & Business Writing (ENG-715) Muhammad Bilal Bashir UIIT, Rawalpindi

Outline 1. Designing Tutorials 2. The Elaborative Approach 3. The Minimalist Approach 4. Summary 2

Writing to Teach - Tutorials Lecture: 8 3

Designing Tutorials The documentation sets do not just contain Tutorials  Procedural and Reference It is important that documentation writer knows when to use Tutorials and when to use other forms of documentation 4

Intention to Teach With tutorial the documentation writer wants the user not only to gain familiarity with skills but also to remember them and perform the later from memory With tutorials the writer tries to limit the awareness of the user  In other forms writer tries to expand the user’s awareness by providing him the alternatives, shortcuts, and options etc. This takes a great deal of control and structuring of the user’s interaction with the material 5

Selectivity in Choosing Material The tutorial documentation takes up more space so all the functions of the program cannot be explained in the tutorial It is important to know which essential tasks users need to know and which they do not In order to select the tasks essentially, a thorough user analysis is required With the help of users analysis the writer can come to know about the scenarios that are probably performed quite often  The tutorial can be designed to cover these scenarios 6

Tutorial Users Need Special Care A number of studies of tutorial users show us that they require special consideration, mostly because, as adults, they have special learning styles For example, most adult learners are oriented towards goals;  They want to know why they have to learn something  What good it will do if they learn something Adults like to think of themselves as self-motivated and self-assured and they do not want to do mistakes  All these styles of learning need to be accommodated 7

Tutorial Users Need Special Care (Continue…) There are two approaches to accommodate these learning styles of tutorial users  The Elaborative Approach  The Minimalist Approach 8

Name & Significance of this Bird? 9

Name & Significance of this Tree? 10

Name and Significance of this Flower? 11

Name & Significance of this Animal? 12

The Elaborative Approach Some research suggests that elaboration like explanations, examples, summaries, articulation of goals and objectives helps to improve retention of skills and software manuals The elaborative approach helps novice to intermediate users Research has shown that elaboration helps users to apply their learning to real world situations Elaboration helps when learning complex and abstract information and also when the user is encountering basic information for the first time 13

The Elaborative Approach (Continue…) This approach should always be used with novice learners The design of elaborative manual follows the traditional principles of lesson design  Instruction results in articulated skills  Skills transfer capability to real-world performance  Steps should present skills in a logical, cumulative structure  Highly specific instructions work best  Give practice and feedback at each skill level  Master one skill before going on to the next 14

The Minimalist Approach The Minimalist approach takes the realistic view of human behavior Minimalist approach assert that people learn on a concrete plane. In this approach less means more Observations about the Software User  Users jump the gun: Users like to use the program first and want to see the output instead of reading information  Users will skip information: Users will rarely read the introduction to the manual  Users like to lead: Users like to create their own perspectives on their training 15

The Minimalist Approach (Continue…) There are four principles of Minimalist Design 1. Choose an action-oriented approach 2. Anchor the tool in the task domain (workplace context) 3. Support error recognition and recovery 4. Support reading to do, study, and locate 16

Choose an Action-Oriented Approach The need to focus on real tasks and activities comes from observations that users wants to do something with a piece of software rather than learn about it They encourages practice as a main way of learning instead of having a practice session at the end They suggest that try it out The documenter ensures that the exploration leads in a right direction Real world tasks can guide the user in this effort 17

Anchor the Tool in Task Domain Software is a tool to accomplish workplace tasks This fundamental point guides you to identifying the task that comes from user workplace Task domain represents the workplace situation and other area of expertise Therefore, centering instruction around real-world activities work best for the software instructions 18

Support Error Recognition and Recovery The making mistake is a key part of problem solving and learning  The minimalist approach follows the strategy of exploration which lead to mistakes (a necessary part of exploring) You need to support not only error recognition but make it easy for the user to get out of trouble  Study the user and learn where mistakes can and probably will occur  Find out the kind of errors a user most likely to make and include information for recovering from mistakes Turn the user loose but give the steps the recover 19

Support Reading to Do, Study, and Locate A minimalist may have as few as three pages in the manual The reason for this economy lies in the observation that user read to locate necessary information rather than from front to back like you would a novel You should indicate first what the user should do, then when needed you can present the explanation 20

Comparing the Elaborative and Minimalist Approaches 21 CriterionElaborativeMinimalist UsesProgram with highly abstract concepts, complicated procedures, large systems Getting started booklet, guided tour, demos, program with intuitive interfaces, programs requiring creativity by the user AdvantagesGood for users who likes structure, first-time users, traditional Cuts writing time, document length, interesting DisadvantagesLimit documents to one or two scenarios, boring May frustrate first-time user, may backfire, increase testing time

22 Summary Any Questions?