User Documentation

Instructor: Glenda
Easter
Understanding Task Orientation

Emphasize Problem-Solving Use Multi-Document Support

Provide Task-Oriented Organization Design for Users

Support User Control of Information Facilitate Communication Tasks

Orient Pages Semantically Encourage User Communities

Facilitate Information Status Support Cognitive Processing
Goals of Documentation Writer
 Help the user become knowledgeable
about a program being used to develop
proficiency.
 Encourage the user to use the software
package in his or her job to develop
efficiency.

Understanding Task Orientation, 2

•What Makes Good Software
Documentation?
 Good software documentation should show
the connections between the user’s
professional work and the computer
program.
– User-oriented examples called scenarios and
page layouts can all contribute to this.
– This creates a “task oriented” manual or one
that manages and communicates information
related to his or her task.

Understanding Task Orientation, 3

Guidelines for Writing a
Successful Software Manual
 Emphasize problem solving.
– A manual or help system should help users
solve problems in the workplace.
 Provide Task-Oriented Organization.
– Organize a manual or help system in a way that
matches the kinds of tasks a user will perform.
– Example would be to type text before running a
grammar check.

Understanding Task Orientation, 4

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Encourage User Control of Information.
– Software users want to decide what the
program does for them.
– Users should always feel in control of their
program.
– Cross-references in a manual and hypertext
links in online systems help maintain the user’s
sense of control over the documentation.

Understanding Task Orientation, 5

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Orient Pages Semantically.
– You should arrange the page in the most
meaningful manner according to the elements
of the job the user needs to perform.
– Put important elements first.
– Make important elements larger or in a
different font.
– Use graphics as well as visuals to balance text.

Understanding Task Orientation, 6

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Facilitate Information Tasks
– All programs require information or help users
create information they can use in their jobs.
– You need to know how and where your user
gets, stores, and shares information so you can
point out those functions to your user
specifically in their manuals.

Understanding Task Orientation, 7

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Use Multi-Document Support
– Documentation and manuals are not only found in
books, but are more and more frequently user manuals
are being provided:
• online
• in help screens
• online tutorials
– Packages today allows you to create a text file
containing text and graphics, then convert that file into
suitable help files.

Understanding Task Orientation, 8

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Design for Users
– Documentation must be provided to answer the
questions of the user and to meet the needs of
the user and not from what a documentation
manual should look like.

Understanding Task Orientation, 9

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Facilitate Communication Tasks
– Writers and designers of software must analyze the
type of information that is to be communicated and to
whom it is going.
– After this analysis, they must determine which program
will provide the functions needed by the user.
– There are many terms that are specific to different
environments. By observing the communication,
terms, steps, explanations, and procedures can be
written in the glossary.

Understanding Task Orientation, 10

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Encourage User Communities
– Many times when a new software package is
implemented in a company, users feel isolated
and no one to answer questions.
– By developing User Communities, individuals
are encouraged to help one another.
– Many times there will be telephone numbers of
individuals using the same software that clients
can contact with questions.

Understanding Task Orientation, 11

Guidelines for Writing a Successful
Software Manual (Continued)
 Support Cognitive Processing
– People use a number of methods to remember
certain points. These mental models are called
cognitive schema.
– They associate a task of function with
something the user already knows.

Understanding Task Orientation, 12

Tools Towards Productivity
 The more a manual can support productive work,
the greater the chances are of acceptance and
satisfaction by the user.
 User documentation should make users proficient
with software and efficient in their jobs.
 To make the use of software packages successful, it
requires that the user apply the software to a
specific task.
– These tasks are often in the form of “how to”
procedures and/or tutorials.

Understanding Task Orientation, 13

Task Orientation, What Is It?
 Task Orientation is the integration of a
software package that meshes with the users
working environment.
– It is user-driven strategy and depends on the
needs of the user in meeting their job
requirements.

Understanding Task Orientation, 14

Task Orientation, What Is It?
(Continued)
– A task orientation is very different from a
template approach.
• A template approach does not lead to adapting the
manual to the user’s individuals needs.
• It does little to relate the software program to the job
the user has to do.

Understanding Task Orientation, 15

Task Orientation, What Is It?
(Continued)
 The theory behind task orientation is that a
software package should help people do
meaningful work.
 Shoshanna Zuboff noted that computers
record information about their work, as well
as doing work for the users.

Understanding Task Orientation, 16

Task Orientation, What Is It?
(Continued)
 When information is recorded about a task, it
is called informing.
– With informing work, computers keep and manage
information.
– Difficulties created by using computers and
software fall into five categories:
• Deskilling • Increased abstraction
• Increased isolation • Remote supervision
• Information overload

Understanding Task Orientation, 17

Job Deskilling
 When skills that were once needed to complete a
job are no longer needed, it is known as job
deskilling.
– A computer program can perform many of the tasks a
person used to perform so the job requires less skilled
people.
– It becomes the charge of the documentation writer to
help the software user decide which skills are used to
perform the best possible job in completing a task.

Understanding Task Orientation, 18

Skills Transfer
 People learn new skills in different ways.
 Similar tasks carry over the skills to a new skill
area. This is known as skill transfer.
 A great deal of research is being conducted on
how job skills transfer into software skills and
how beginner skills transfer into advanced skills.
– A software manual should encourage advanced skills.

Understanding Task Orientation, 19

Increasing Abstract Tasks
 The computer does things in a very abstract
way. You can’t touch it; it’s not concrete.
 How do people respond to using the
abstract tool?
– People often feel good about their work
because they develop a tactile sense of their
tools.

Understanding Task Orientation, 20

Increasing Abstract Tasks
(Continued)
 The same feeling of loss of control faces all
computer users.
 Without a feeling of control over their
work, workers feel that it loses most of its
simplicity.
 The apparent loss creates resistance to
software and threatens efficient use.

Understanding Task Orientation, 21

Increasing Abstract Tasks
(Continued)
 Whereas increased abstraction relates to
how people see their jobs through their
tools--computerized or not--work also takes
place in a social domain.
 This is also threatened by computer-
mediated work.

Understanding Task Orientation, 22

Increased Isolation
 The social structure plays a major role in
our job satisfaction.
 A computer terminal has now become the
primary focus of a person’s interaction with
a company, and with others in the company.

Understanding Task Orientation, 23

Increased Isolation (Continued)
 People need others to communicate with, to
get feedback from , and to get rewards and
other incentives that make work enjoyable.
 They create useful dialogs with others to
help share and solve problems.
 People using computers risk a diminished
importance of their co-workers in their jobs.

Understanding Task Orientation, 24

Increased Isolation (Continued)
 Regular computer users may suffer for a
lack of strong interpersonal relationships.
 The software documenter faces a challenge
to introduce the isolated user to new
possibilities of interaction with co-workers
through the computer.

Understanding Task Orientation, 25

Remote Supervision
 Users feel more trapped than ever with the
continued use of the computer.
 Not only do they have to sit looking at a terminal
all day, but the boss can check on the status of
any work needed by checking the network.
 Employees can no longer “SLUFF OFF” because
their work report is readily available on various
production reports.

Understanding Task Orientation, 26

Remote Supervision (Continued)
 A manager can access your files
electronically and even organize your work
day for you without ever showing up
physically.
 People may lose their sense of control over
their work because of the increased
supervision exercised through the computer
system.
Understanding Task Orientation, 27
Information Overload
 Because computers produce information very
quickly, some users resist computer use.
They feel overloaded by information.
 Having volumes of information does not
always solve problems for users.
 Having too much information without the
ability to understand its significance can
cause information anxiety.
Understanding Task Orientation, 28
Information Overload
(Continued)
 Information Anxiety
– Can afflict computer users who find themselves
flooded by information without knowing which
they should try to understand.
– Computer users need a way to filter or sort through
and make sense of the information that floods them.
– Software manual writers can help by providing
ways to reorganize information around categories
relevant to users.

Understanding Task Orientation, 29

Letting the Software & Documentation
Work for You Not Against You
 The software documenter needs to find
ways to reinforce the skill challenges that
are inherent in efficient computer work.
 Users need to see their work as significant:
to see that what they are doing with a
software program can have and impact on
their work, their organization, and others
within their organization.
Understanding Task Orientation, 30
Letting the Software & Documentation
Work for You Not Against You
 Challenging the user often requires teaching
computer skills in the context for a person's
job so that the user can see the benefit of
the software.
 Software support should reinforce decision
making and problem solving as important
computer skills.

Understanding Task Orientation, 31

Conceptual Orientation
 Work with computers require that certain
pieces of information be handled in an
abstract manner that makes computer work
difficult and can cause users to reject
programs.
 Part of the difficulty users have with
learning abstract concepts lies in their
learning preferences.
Understanding Task Orientation, 32
Conceptual Orientation
(Continued)
 The right training method can facilitate
learning of software programs.
 Documentation that uses the appropriate
training method is conceptually oriented.
– Conceptually oriented documentation
concentrates on the ideas that the user needs to
operate and handle the information generated
by a software program.

Understanding Task Orientation, 33

Conceptual Orientation
(Continued)
– Writers can set up categories of information for
users that match the user’s expectations and
present them in overviews called advance
organizers.
• Advance organizes help users understand instructions by
providing a context for each step.
– Graphics (icons, process diagrams, structure charts,
flow charts, cartoons, pictures) embody metaphors
which clarify abstract concepts and help users
navigate this difficult aspect of computer software.

Understanding Task Orientation, 34

Awareness of User Communities
 User Community refers to those who use the
same program within an organization, and it also
refers to others who use computers in their
work.
 Computers fit well into existing social groups
within a business.
– Most employees work in groups and as a result have
to coordinate their activities, share work in progress,
and store the results.

Understanding Task Orientation, 35

Awareness of User Communities
(Continued)
 Documentation can play a key role in
supporting collaborative work by indicating
ways that users can convert output files
(reports, designs, spreadsheets) into formats
that other team members can use.
– Documentation can support what we call an
individual’s organizational existence: the persona
a person creates as an employee in an
organization.

Understanding Task Orientation, 36

Awareness of User Communities
(Continued)
 By using software’s communicative
functions strategically, the computer can
become an important tool to enhance the
user’s social arena.

Understanding Task Orientation, 37

Self-Managing or Overly
Supervised?
 Computers connect workers to a number their
supervisors, thus making the worker feel
overly supervised.
 Software also opens up opportunities for self-
management.
 A thorough analysis of the user’s job
situation will help the documenter to see
areas where the user has discretion in a job.
Understanding Task Orientation, 38
Self-Managing or Overly
Supervised? (Continued)
 Even the most menial jobs allow a measure
of choice for employees and often the
manual can point up the connection
between the software and those important
self-management tasks.

Understanding Task Orientation, 39

Software Management–the Key
to Job Success
 Software gives users new opportunities to
manage information.
 In organizations, the currency used is
information.
 In corporations, information represents the
source of power and authority.
 Software also opens up a world of new tasks
for its users.

Understanding Task Orientation, 40

Cost/Benefit Analysis Checklist
 Will the manual help me use the software to
solve problems?
 Does the manual reflect tasks that I perform
in my job?
 Does the manual tell me how I can control
the program?
 Do the pages follow a logical design that
emphasizes what I need to know?

Understanding Task Orientation, 41

Cost/Benefit Analysis Checklist
(Continued)
 Will this manual help me understand and
manage the information the program
generates?
 Is the manual clearly segmented into useful
activities?
 Is the manual designed for use rather than
to describe the system?

Understanding Task Orientation, 42

Cost/Benefit Analysis Checklist
(Continued)
 Will the manual help me communicate the
information I generate with the program?
 Does the manual help me connect with
other users of this software?
 Does the manual answer my questions
about the software?

Understanding Task Orientation, 43

Levels of Task Orientation
TEACHING (Tutorial)
• Users store and use information from
memory
• Close distance between writer and
reader
 Options severely limited: least
autonomy
Understanding Task Orientation, 44
Levels of Task Orientation
(Continued)
GUIDANCE (Procedures)
• Users remember only during
performance
• Moderate distance between writer
and reader
• Options and alternatives given
freely: moderate autonomy
Understanding Task Orientation, 45
Levels of Task Orientation
(Continued)
SUPPORT (reference)
• Users look up information on
demand
• Writer's voice not present
• All options and alternatives given:
complete autonomy

Understanding Task Orientation, 46