IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Mar 1990

Creating an essential manual: an experiment in prototyping and task analysis

D.R. Watts San Diego State University

Abstract

The author describes the design and creation of a task-oriented user guide for students doing computer-assisted writing at San Diego State University. The project incorporated prototyping and task analysis techniques borrowed from systems analysis. A database provided a task dictionary which described 35 characteristics for each of the 66 tasks identified as necessary to perform simple word processing. The author discusses definition of user needs, selection of the documentation format, prototyping as a method for documentation development, putting the prototyping approach to work, devising a method for task analysis, and implications of using database techniques to task analysis.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Journal
IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Published
1990-03-01
DOI
10.1109/47.49070
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Closed
Topics
digital rhetoric
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (4)

  1. Partridge (1986)
    So what is task orientation, anyway?
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  2. McGraw (1986)
    Guidelines for producing documentation for expert systems
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  3. Oram (1986)
    Opening passage: A new look at the system documentation problem
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  4. Maynard (1982)
    A user-driven approach to better user manuals
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Also cites 2 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1177/105065198800200105
     ↗
  2. 10.1037/10260-012
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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