Minimal Manual and On-line Examples for Learning How to Use Interface Construction Toolkits

Increasingly, interface construction toolkits such as HyperCard(r), Digitalk Parts(r), and Visual Basic® are used to develop applications for end-users. Recent research claims that most users do not like to read textual information and that the most successful resource is minimal. The minimalist approach has proven successful, but research remains obscure regarding the type of comprehension aids to include in a minimal resource. The goal of this research is to examine the role of on-line examples in a minimal manual on learning to use interface construction toolkits. For this purpose, we developed five user resources including two versions of a minimal manual and three versions of InterCONS (toolkit to construct interfaces) integrating various on-line information and examples. We assessed these resources with 26 subjects. The results indicated that the minimal manual was sufficient to learn InterCONS and that the subjects ignored the more complex examples. Several recommendations concerning the improvement of the resources and of the interface construction toolkit emerged from this research.