Animated Demonstrations vs Written Instructions for Learning Procedural Tasks: A Preliminary Investigation

Animated demonstrations have been created due to the development of direct manipulation interfaces and the need for faster learning, so that users can learn interface procedures by watching. To compare animated demonstrations with written inst~~ions we observed users learning and performing HyperCardTMS authoring tasks on the Ma~nt~h~ during three performance sessions. In the training session, users were asked either to watch a demonstration or read the procedures needed for the task and then to perform the task. In the later two sessions users were asked to perform tasks identical or similar to the tasks used in the training session. Results showed that demons~ations provided faster and more accurate learning during the training session. However, during the later sessions those who saw demonstrated procedures took longer to perform the tasks than did users of written instructions. Users appeared to be mimicking the training demonstrations without processing the information which would he needed later. In fact, when users had to infer procedures for tasks which were similar to those seen in the training session, the text group was much better at deducing the necessary procedures than the demons~ation group. These findings indicate that animated demonstrations, as they were implemented for this study, were not robust enough to aid in later transfer.