atw: Re: Should we give the users what they want?
- From: "Geoffrey Marnell" <geoffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:46:45 +1100
Stuart,
That's not too bad a summary of my initial point, although it is not a
"couple" of studies. There are a lot of them. I listed just a couple,
because I was providing an argument, not a bibliography.
You might argue that my conclusion is sensible but unexceptional. I agree,
except that there are folks in our profession who are exhorting us to
abandon this or that media on the grounds that the younger generation prefer
other media. This is not, as you implied yesterday, a straw-man argument.
Read the latest issue of Southern Communicator and you see what prompted by
initial post. This is a view I disagree with and I was attempting, with
yesterday's post, to gauge the views of others.
The issue on which we disagree is of no direct relevance. I might think that
comprehension, to some degree, must always precede performance (however
effective or ineffective). You jump straight to performance (and Christine
went straight for learning outcomes). But the real goal of my second
question yesterday was to see if any in our profession is using a formula,
algorithm or whatever to determine which media is better than some other
medium given such-and-such circumstances whatever the measure of best might
be: comprehension, performance, learning outcomes and so on. I hadn't come
across any myself, or at least any with the backing of scientific rigor; but
if others knew of one or more, then it would be good to share the
information. Because without any such formula, algorithm or whatever, the
choice of one medium over another comes down to what? Subjectivity?
Gut-feel? Reader preferences? The demands of lawyers? The fad-of-the-month
peddled by the marketing department?
Moreover, it would mean that the technology evangelists who are exhorting us
to adopt the media that the young prefer (wikis, mash-ups, podcasts etc) are
also basing their exhortations on non-scientific grounds. Don't get me
wrong: I am just as excited as any other technical writer about new media. I
just want to see the evidence that we will at least maintain, and certainly
not lower, our readers ability to understand our materials if we embrace
some such new media.
So to summarise my postings of yesterday: contrary to the technology
evangelists who are insisting that technical writers "must adapt" to the
media preferences of the younger generation:
1. There are reasons why the media preferences of our users (young,
middle-aged or old) should not always be the deciding factor in our choice
of media.
2. There seems to be no scientific justification for preferring one
medium over another (new or old), or at least scientific justification based
on comprehension or performance. (The exception seems to be the numerous
studies that show that paper out-performs online, under many situations. But
are there studies that show that wikis out-perform online help? That
podcasts out-perform printed user guides? And so on and so on.)
I'm hoping that point 2 is wrong, and that someone on the list can point me
to one or more studies that do justify a choice of one medium over others
(ceteris paribus and all that). But until such studies are known, I for one
are not going to yet too anxious about new media. And wouldn't it be
splendid if we could give users every form of media we could think of (as
some correspondents are saying or implying). But the reality of budgets and
deadlines invariably means that we can offer only limited media. I would
love to be confident that the media I have chosen is best for my readers,
and confidence only comes with scientific rigor.
Cheers
Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
W: <http://www.abelard.com.au> www.abelard.com.au
_____
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Stuart Burnfield
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 4:50 PM
To: Austechwriter
Subject: atw: Re: Should we give the users what they want?
Geoffrey, is this a fair (if brief) summary of your initial discussion?
- There's a perception or assumption that younger people prefer reading
online.
- This preference will become widespread as older folks retire.
- A couple of studies show significantly better comprehension of printed
text compared with the same text read online.
(Comprehension was measured by asking questions to check understanding of
the material.)
- In some cases poor comprehension would increase the risk of death, injury,
damage, financial loss, work performance, etc.
- In these cases, shouldn't the medium that is shown to provide objectively
better comprehension should be used (in other words, performance trumps
preference).
Laid out this way, the last point seems sensible (if unexceptional). You go
on to ask if we are measuring comprehension and using it to inform our
choice of delivery media. This is where I have some quibbles.
Nearly all of my writing ultimately supports readers who use software to
help do their work. What matters is whether they can do their tasks
successfully and how long it takes. I have grave doubts whether
comprehension, measured by asking questions about the text, is a good proxy
for how well and how quickly readers could perform tasks with the text in
front of them.
Of course we would expect better comprehension to equal better performance.
All things being equal, it's hard to imagine that not being the case. But
all things are not equal. Depending on the subject I might want to use
illustrations, maybe image maps and animations. The last two are hard to do
in print--did the comprehension test cover that? Maybe print comprehension
is better for text versus text, but comprehension of text in print is not as
good as for text plus graphics online?
For those of you working in places where understanding *is* the outcome,
measures of comprehension are useful. I still have my doubts though about
how you usefully compare online and print--Can I increase the font size?
Resize the window? Bookmark pages? Link to other publications? Add notes? It
seems to me you can only do a manageable study by artificially excluding
many of the advantages of each medium.
You asked if we are doing anything to "assess the comprehension rating of
the media" we chose. Not in my case--in my last three contracts I haven't
had any choice over the media. So far I've never been in a position to
dictate the delivery medium for the users' own good.
If I did have the choice, how much weight would I put on print versus online
comprehensibility? Some, but not much. There are a lot of factors under my
control that affect comprehension--Do I understand the users, tasks and
environment? Is the language appropriate? Unambiguous? Clear? Correct? I'd
worry about these first.
Geoffrey said:
> For example, licking and scrolling is considered more distracting
> than turning a page
You're not wrong! Talk about your new delivery media... ;^)
Stuart
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