Experimental evaluation of tools for teaching the ZOG frame editor

This paper focuses on Z O G , a rapid-response, menu-selection, software system intended as a general-purpose interface to a computer. Z O G databases are networks of screen-sized displays called frames. ZOG 's frame and net editor (ZED) combines coventionai text-editing facilities with facilities specialized to the network character of the database. One of the design goals for Z O G is that Z O G be relatively self-contained in terms of instruction on the use of Z O G and ZED. This paper compares two ZOG-based tools for teaching naive users to edit with ZED: an on-line (net) users' manual and an off-line users' manual (derived from the on-line manual). They are compared first with each other, then with eight editors evaluated by Roberts and Moran [5]. The results indicate that (1) off-iine and on-line manual users take about the same time to complete a standard instruction sequence, but (2) off-line users use Z E D more effectively at the end of the sequence. Finally, (3) ZED learning falls in the middle of the range of Roberts and Moran's editors in terms of minutes required on average to learn to do a new editing task.