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Subject:Re: 6 of one ain't 1/2 doz of another From:"Less is more." <yvonne -at- VENUS -dot- SMARTSTAR -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 17 Feb 1995 09:08:39 -0800
Sue Gallagher <sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com> writes:
> I discussed the four major program utilities and the layout
> of the main window. I chose the unfortunate title "Getting
> Started" for the chapter. Comments from beta were that the
> overview chapter was way too confusing -- that it should be
> eliminated and that all introductory material should be at
> the beginning of each chapter (eeeeeeek!). Of course, in
> ...
At the 1994 STC Annual Conference, JoAnn Hackos spoke about "The Problem
of Advance Organizers" in a session called "What Have We Learned from
Usability Testing?" This is a second hand report, so someone who attended
the session may have more details. Basically, the idea was that they learned
in usability tests that users had trouble with sections that actually were
intended to summarize in advance. They were confused if they thought the
section contained the full instructions because there wasn't enough detail
to actually DO anything.
I believe the solution was to make it more clear that this is an overview,
and to point to the sections that contain more detail throughout the summary.
Or, another possible solution was to leave out advance organizers altogether.
Yvonne DeGraw
yvonne -at- smartstar -dot- com
(805)685-8000
