Does the anual Help? An Examination of the Problem-Solving Support Offered by Manuals

This paper examines whether manuals provide adequate help for users who are experiencing a problem. First, an outline is given of the main stages in problem-solving. This outline offers a broad framework for the two studies of current practice that follow. The first study focuses on the accessibility of help. It examines how often manuals fail to offer the right keywords, and how often they have not marked or have misplaced problemsolving information. The main conclusion is that most manuals pose formidable obstacles to accessing help. The second study investigates the main reasons for presenting problem-solving information as a Regular Step, as a Skipable Action, or as an Afterthought. The main finding is that writers or typographers tend to opt for a different design than what is theoretically best. OST handbooks for technical writers give concrete suggestions [ 11-[3]. A prominent guideline is to number the consecutive actions in a procedure. This “almost guarantees fewer mistakes” [ 2 , p. 2341. How often is this advice followed in practice? The answer is that we don’t know. No inventory on this matter exists. Inventories are also absent for most of the other advice given in the handbooks. The handbooks also suggest that it is wise to consider the competition. Such an inventory offers a perspective from which to (re)consider one’s own product, yielding new ideas on content, format, layout, and access methods. Is this advice followed? Perhaps. Yet, again very few inventories have found their way into the literature. The dearth of inventories is unfortunate for those who want to get to know the competition at little cost. But, more importantly, it also impedes the advancement of technical writing as an applied science. Inventories are vital for their state-of-the-art descriptions. Among other benefits, they reveal when writers follow the advice of handbooks and when they do not. Such insights can stimulate better practices and more refined theories. In short, inventories are crucial for tying theory with practice. This paper reports on an inventory concerning problemsolving information in manuals. Problem-solving information is defined here as help for handling conflicts that interrupt or block actions. Such information may assist users in detecting, defining, diagnosing, and correcting problems, but only one of Manuscript received January 1996; revised June 1996. The author is with the Faculty of Educational Science and Technology, Department of Instructional Technology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. the four elements is needed to label a section as containing problem-solving information. The following example shows a section with three elements [description added]: “If the text Drive not ready reading drive A appears [detection], you have not inserted the diskette deeply enough into the drive [diagnosis]. Insert it again so that the button pops up. Then type 1 [correction].” One reason for analyzing problem-solving information is that problems can have a considerable effect on user motivation and acceptance of a program and manual. In addition, research has shown that users frequently engage in problem solving.. For example, it has been found that between 25 and SO% of the user’s time in word processing is spent on problem solving [4]-[7]. The inventory begins with an outline of the main stages of problem solving. This description offers a broad framework for examining current practice. Two studies are then reported. The first focuses on obstacles to accessing problem-solving information. It examines how often manuals fail to offer the right keywords, and how often they have not marked or have misplaced the problem-solving information. The second study focuses on the presentation of problem-solving information. Among other aspects, this study brings to light some of the reasons one might have for marking and placing the information in a particular way. STAGES IN PROBLEM SOLVING The processes people go through in problem solving have been examined in various disciplines and for various types of problems. For example, studies have considered how people search for information in textbooks and manuals, how research problems develop, and how people solve problems in games such as chess and bridge [8]-[14]. Most of these studies suggest that problem solving progresses through three main stages (see Fig. 1). Stage 1: Experiencing a Problem All problem solving begins with a user experiencing a problem. Some authors call this problemflnding to indicate that the person must literally find the problem [81, [13], [151-[17]. This stage typically requires two activities: