Re-engineering Online Documentation: Designing Examples-based Online Support Systems

INTRODUCTION In this article, we argue that three developments in the design and evaluation of online support systems are reshaping traditional design efforts. First, we begin by questioning the long-term benefits of using linear, paper-based approaches to the design of online support systems that assist users in learning sophisticated computer software to accomplish complex tasks; instead, borrowing from principles of re-engineering, we outline an alternative user-centered approach to online documentation design that draws on the metaphor of information as tool. Second, although many principles of effective minimalist design pervade current practice in designing support materials (see Carroll 1990; van der Meij and Carroll 1995), we argue for the design of materials that support both procedural instruction and conceptual, performance-based learning. Third, tailoring support materials (in effect, re-engineering them) to aid customer performance through examplebased interaction represents a potentially useful approach to designing effective online documentation, especially for supporting software where experienced users engage in non-linear task sequences to solve complex problems. Despite the innovations produced by computers and information technology, perhaps no fact is as telling as the mere 1 percent productivity gain attributed to the use of computing technologies (Constant 1993). The large investments in computers and related technology that started in the late 1960s have run over $100 billion annually since 1991, yet since the early 1970s, productivity gains have averaged less than 1 percent in the U.S. (Landauer 1995). It seems that although organizations have faced significant challenges in their struggle to restructure and retool their businesses for the 21st century, their attempts at improving productivity and performance through investments in information technology have often delivered disappointing results. This small increase in productivity results from the fact that companies still tend to use technology to automate old ways of doing business, and so existing processes are left intact, and computers are used simply to increase their speed (Hammer 1990; Turnage 1990). The lack of substantive productivity increases results from businesses’ incorrect implementation of new technology. To address this “productivity gap,” many companies have tried to start over and “re-engineer” their businesses. Organizations have found that simply speeding up a business process does not address its inherent performance deficiencies. Re-engineering—in the classic, business school sense of the term—refers to the use of modern information technology to radically redesign business processes in an attempt to realize substantial improvements in performance (Hammer and Champy 1989). Business processes and structures are often outmoded and obsolete or have not kept pace with changes in technology and business objectives. Most of the organizational structures, work flows, and control mechanisms used by businesses came of age before organizations considered computer automation, and these processes were designed to support efficiency and control. New technology and new business objectives have left companies yearning for improvements in the performance of their processes, whether in speed, service, or quality (Hammer 1990).