RE: When they shouldn't be experimenting (was RE: Encouraging learning---g by experimentation?

Subject: RE: When they shouldn't be experimenting (was RE: Encouraging learning---g by experimentation?
From: "Mike Bradley" <mbradley -at- techpubs -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 14:13:36 -0800



> If I leave out the "clutter"...I get reasonable-sounding
> complaints that we must tell the users the information that
> they need in order to make decisions... and to keep
> themselves out of trouble... and away from the Customer
> Support line....
>
> If I put in the "you need to know this" info, between the
> steps, I get complaints that: "It's hard to follow. The
> flow is interrupted. I want it all on one page..."

Seven words. I think it was in a recent IEEE Transactions that a study
found that users rarely read more than the first seven words of a step
in a how-to procedure. They don't read additional paragraphs in the step
and they stop altogether after just a few steps--I forget how many, but
it might have been five.

Heck, I don't want to read any more than that myself, not when I'm
trying to get something done.

= Mike Bradley
Tech Pubs



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Follow-Ups:

References:
RE: When they shouldn't be experimenting (was RE: Encouraging learning---g by experimentation?: From: Charles E Vermette

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