User Guides: Some Theoretical Guidelines for Their Use.
Abstract
Recognitional capacity is needed in order to perform tasks: a recognition of when procedures apply. Further, recognitional capacity cannot be replaced by higher-level procedures. This creates an insurmountable barrier for guidebooks that attempt to provide step-by-step procedural accounts of task performance. User guides will be most successful when they attempt to show novices how to perform procedural tasks. However, step-by-step user guides will be least successful when applied to tasks involving recognitional capacity, with the goal of developing high levels of proficiency. The information gathered will be voluminous and difficult to present, but will also be criticized as insufficient. It is suggested that the way to overcome the barrier presented by recognitional capacity is by approaching it directly, perhaps as a type of analogical inference, rather than by trying to decompose it into more procedures. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA075805
Entities
People
- Gary A. Klein