Abstract

In analyzing audiences for software manuals, documentation developers need to move past a strictly cognitive vision of users' needs and examine the social and organizational factors that influence task performance and instructional needs. In order to discover the ways in which social and organizational factors affect users' tasks and their acquisition of knowledge and skills, I conducted a survey of 25 people who use databases at work. All survey respondents use database programs as tools for conducting job tasks that involve complex analyses and reporting of data. I examined the relationship between people's technical proficiency and task complexity and their job roles, professional responsibilities, flexibility in work arrangements and modes of workplace learning. Findings show that learning to use databases for complex tasks in work contexts entails more than merely learning concepts and procedures for executing program functions. Users need to learn ways of manipulating a program, integrating and combining its functions in inventive ways to serve the purposes of various types of job tasks and to support professional approaches to these tasks.