research-article

User preferences of software documentation genres

Authors:

Ralph H. Earle,

Kathryn E. AlexanderAuthors Info & Claims

SIGDOC '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual International Conference on the Design of Communication

Article No.: 46, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/2775441.2775457

Published: 16 July 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Today's technical software users find a wide variety of content online, from videos to forum posts to online articles. This study examines the extent to which the genre of this content matters to the users searching for it. It presents the findings of a new exploratory study that addresses the significance of genre preferences to the users, given that genre is secondary to their actual business goals. It looks at documentation users' usage of, and attitudes towards, documentation genres, and how factors such as work role and past experience come into play. Our conclusions can help individuals who formulate content strategies to understand the extent and strength of genre usage. This in turn can help them determine a strategic mix of documentation genres.

References

[1]

Ceaparu, I., Lazar, J., Bessiere, K., Robinson, J., and Shneiderman, B. Determining causes and severity of end-user frustration, International Journal of Human Computer Interaction, 17(3), 333--356, 2004.

[2]

Chilana, P. K., Grossman, T., and Fitzmaurice, G. Modern software product support processes and the usage of multimedia formats. CHI '11, 3093--3102.

Digital Library

[3]

Chilana, P. K., Ko, A. J., Wobbrock, J. O., Grossman, T., Fitzmaurice, G. Postdeployment usability: A survey of current practices. CHI'11, 2243--2246.

Digital Library

[4]

Fidel, R. and Green, M. The many faces of accessibility: engineers' perception of information sources, Information Processing & Management, vol. 40, pp. 563--581, 2004.

Digital Library

[5]

Forward, A. and Lethbridge, T. C. The relevance of software documentation, tools and technologies: a survey. In Proc. ACM Symp. on Document Engineering, pages 26--33, 2002.

Digital Library

[6]

Freund, L. Contextualizing the information-?seeking behavior of software engineers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology. 2015.

[7]

Freund, L. A cross-domain analysis of task and genre effects on perceptions of usefulness. Information Processing & Management, vol. 49, 1108--1121, 2013.

Digital Library

[8]

Freund, L. & Toms, E. G. Enterprise search behavior of software engineers. In 2006 ACM SIGIR, 645--646.

Digital Library

[9]

Freund, L., Toms, E. G., & Clarke, C. L. A. Modeling task-- genre relationships for IR in the workplace. In 2005 ACM SIGIR conference. Salvador Brazil.

Digital Library

[10]

Garousi, G., Garousi-Yusifoğlu, V., Ruhe, G., Zhi, J., Moussavi, M., Smith, B. Usage and usefulness of technical software documentation: An industrial case study, Information & Software Technology, 2015, 664--682.

[11]

Gottipati, S., Lo, D. and Jiang, J. Finding relevant answers in software forums, in Proceedings of the Automated Software Engineering Conference, 2011.

Digital Library

[12]

Henß, S., Monperrus, M., Mezini, M. Semi-automatically extracting FAQs to improve accessibility of software development knowledge, Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Software Engineering, June 02--09, 2012, Zurich, Switzerland

Digital Library

[13]

Hendricks, R. Feature guides: improving usability of end users. Proceedings of 2003 ACM SIGDOC, 155--159

Digital Library

[14]

Hertzum, M. and Pejtersen, A. M. The information-seeking practices of engineers: searching for documents as well as for people, Information Processing & Management, vol. 36, pp. 761--778, 2000.

Digital Library

[15]

Lafreniere, B., Bunt, A., Lount, M., and Terry, M. Understanding the roles and uses of web tutorials. In Proceedings of the 2013 International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, AAAI, 303--310.

[16]

Lee, D. S. Usage patterns and sources of assistance to personal computer users, MIS Quarterly, 10(4), 313--325, 1986.

Digital Library

[17]

Li, H., Xing, Z. Peng, X., and Zhao, W. What help do developers seek, when and how?, in Proceedings of the Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE), pp. 142--151, IEEE, 2013.

[18]

Lount, M., and Bunt. A., Characterizing web-based tutorials: Exploring quality, community, and showcasing strategies. In Proc. SIGDOC 2014.

Digital Library

[19]

McHugh, M. L. The odds ratio: calculation, usage, and interpretation. Biochemia Medica 2009;19(2):120--6

[20]

Mehlenbacher, B. Documentation: not yet implemented, but coming soon The HCI Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies, and Emerging Applications (pp. 527--543): Routledge, 2003.

Digital Library

[21]

Mitchell, G. What do users really want from computer documentation? Proceedings of IPCC 93, Philadelphia, PA, October, 1993, 27--31.

[22]

Mitchell, G. Shrink-wrapping the formula for better information: End user vs MIS computer documentation preferences," in Proc. IEEE Int. Professional Communication Conf. (Banff, Alta., Canada, 1994), pp. 361--365

[23]

Montesi, M., & Navarrete, T. Classifying Web genres in context: A case study documenting the Web genres used by a software engineer. Information Processing & Management, 44, 1410--1430, 2008.

Digital Library

[24]

Novick, D., Elizalde, E., and Bean, N. Toward a more accurate view of when and how people seek help with computer applications, Proceedings of SIGDOC 2007, El Paso, TX, October 22--24, 2007, 95--102.

Digital Library

[25]

Novick, D., and Ward, K. What users say they want in documentation Proceedings of SIGDOC 2006, Myrtle Beach, SC, October 18--20, 2006, 84--91.

Digital Library

[26]

Novick, D., and Ward, K. Why don't people read the manual? Proceedings of SIGDOC 2006, Myrtle Beach, SC, October 18--20, 2006.

Digital Library

[27]

O'Malley, C., Smolensky, P., Bannon, L., et al. A proposal for user centered system documentation. In Proc. CHI '83, ACM (1983), 282--285.

Digital Library

[28]

Pflugfelder, E. H. The minimalist approach to online instructional videos, Tech. Commun., vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 131--146, 2013.

[29]

Pierce, R., Using customer input to drive change in user assistance, SIGDOC '08, pages 23--30

Digital Library

[30]

Postava-Davignon, C., Kamachi, C., Clarke, C., & Kushmerek, G. Incorporating usability testing into the documentation process. Technical Communication, 51, 36--44, 2004.

[31]

Rosso, M. User-based identification of Web genres. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 59(7), 1053--1072, 2008

Digital Library

[32]

Shachak A., Dow, R., Barnsley, J., Tu, K. Domb, S., Jadad, A. R., and Lemieux-Charles, L. User manuals for a primary care electronic medical record system: a mixed methods study of user- and vendor-generated documents. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 56, (3), 194--209, 2013.

[33]

Smart, K., Whiting, M., and De Tienne, K. Assessing the need for printed and online documentation: A study of customer preference and use, Journal of Business Communication 38(3), 285--314, 2001

[34]

Spinuzzi, C. Grappling with distributed usability: A cultural-historical examination of documentation genres over four decades. SIGDOC '99: Proceedings of the 17th annual international conference on computer documentation, 16--21.

Digital Library

[35]

Spinuzzi, C. and Zachry, M. Genre ecologies: An open-system approach to understanding and constructing documentation. Journal of Computer Documentation, 24 (3). 169--181, 2000.

Digital Library

[36]

Tomasi, M. D., & Mehlenbacher, B. Re-engineering online documentation: Designing examples-based online support systems. Technical Communication, 46 (1), 55--66, 1999.

[37]

van Loggem, B. E. Nobody reads the documentation': true or not? In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Leeds, 2--5 September, 2014:

[38]

Virtaluoto, J. "Death of the Technical Communicator"---Current Issues and Future Visions for our Field. Technical Communication, 61 (1), 38--47, 2014.

[39]

Welty, C. J. Usage of and satisfaction with online help vs. search engines for aid in software use. SIGDOC'11. ACM, New York, USA, 203--210.

Digital Library

[40]

Yates, J., and Orlikowski, W. J. Genres of organizational communication: a structurational approach to studying communication and media, Academy of Management Review, vol. 17, pp. 299--326, 1992.

[41]

Zachry, M. Constructing usable documentation: A study of communicative practices and the early uses of mainframe computing in industry. In ACM SIGDOC '99 Proceedings, 22--25

Digital Library

Cited By

Arya DGuo JRobillard MGraziotin DNolte A(2024)Why People Contribute Software DocumentationProceedings of the 2024 IEEE/ACM 17th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering10.1145/3641822.3641881(91-96)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641822.3641881
Nam DMacvean AMyers BVasilescu B(2024)Understanding Documentation Use Through Log Analysis: A Case Study of Four Cloud ServicesProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642721(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642721
Arya DGuo JRobillard M(2024)Properties and Styles of Software Technology TutorialsIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2023.333256850:2(159-172)Online publication date: Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2023.3332568
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

User preferences of software documentation genres
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

Recommendations

Music/lyrics composition system considering user's image and music genre
SMC'09: Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE international conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics

This paper proposes a music/lyrics composition system consisting of two sections, a lyric composing section and a music composing section, which considers user's image of a song and music genre. First of all, a user has an image of music/lyrics to ...
Taxonomy of Musical Genres
SITIS '09: Proceedings of the 2009 Fifth International Conference on Signal Image Technology and Internet Based Systems

Many researchers have been conducted to retrieve pertinent parameters and adequate models for automatic music genre classification. It plays a significant role in multimedia applications. In principle, the categorization of music is mostly done by ...
The Greek Music Dataset
EANN '15: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Engineering Applications of Neural Networks (INNS)

Music Information Research (MIR) requires musical data in order to test methods and to compare results. Greek music presents a number of unique characteristics that make its musical pieces distinct from popular tracks existing in currently available ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGDOC '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual International Conference on the Design of Communication

July 2015

239 pages

ISBN:9781450336482

DOI:10.1145/2775441

Conference Chairs:
Kathie Gossett
Iowa State University
,
Angie Mallory
Iowa State University
,
Program Chair:
Dawn M. Armfield
Frostburg State University

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Sponsors

Arizona State University: Arizona State University
North Dakota State University: North Dakota State University
University of Limerick: University of Limerick
Chongqing Acad. Sci. Technol.: Chongqing Academy of Science and Technology
Microsoft Research: Microsoft Research
XA: Experience Architecture Program, Michigan State University
Iowa State University: Iowa State University
SIGDOC: ACM Special Interest Group for Design of Communications
University of Central Florida: University of Central Florida

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 16 July 2015

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

SIGDOC '15

Sponsor:

Arizona State University
North Dakota State University
University of Limerick
Chongqing Acad. Sci. Technol.
Microsoft Research
XA
Iowa State University
SIGDOC
University of Central Florida

SIGDOC '15: The 33rd ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication

July 16 - 17, 2015

Limerick, Ireland

Acceptance Rates

SIGDOC '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 49 of 82 submissions, 60%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 355 of 582 submissions, 61%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

19
Total Citations
View Citations
517
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)37
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3

Reflects downloads up to 22 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Arya DGuo JRobillard MGraziotin DNolte A(2024)Why People Contribute Software DocumentationProceedings of the 2024 IEEE/ACM 17th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering10.1145/3641822.3641881(91-96)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641822.3641881
Nam DMacvean AMyers BVasilescu B(2024)Understanding Documentation Use Through Log Analysis: A Case Study of Four Cloud ServicesProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642721(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642721
Arya DGuo JRobillard M(2024)Properties and Styles of Software Technology TutorialsIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2023.333256850:2(159-172)Online publication date: Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2023.3332568
Nezhad MKangavari M(2024)Personalized Persuasive Text Generation2024 10th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (QICAR)10.1109/QICAR61538.2024.10496651(261-267)Online publication date: 29-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/QICAR61538.2024.10496651
Babu SChetitah Mvon Mammen S(2024)Recommender-based User Guidance Framework2024 IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and eXtended and Virtual Reality (AIxVR)10.1109/AIxVR59861.2024.00046(275-280)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/AIxVR59861.2024.00046
Simon AQiu XSelmeczi-Kovacs NFeher IAlexi GKara P(2023)Influence Factors on User Manual Engagement in the Context of Smart Wearable DevicesElectronics10.3390/electronics1217353912:17(3539)Online publication date: 22-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12173539
Liu YArnold ADupont GKobus CLancelot FGranger GRouillard YDuchevet AImbert JMatton N(2023)User Evaluation of Conversational Agents for Aerospace DomainInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.223954440:19(5549-5568)Online publication date: 2-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2239544
Arya DRoychoudhury ACadar CKim M(2022)This is your cue! assisting search behaviour with resource style propertiesProceedings of the 30th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3540250.3558909(1770-1774)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3540250.3558909
Arya DGuo JRobillard M(2022)How programmers find online learning resourcesEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-022-10246-y28:2Online publication date: 24-Dec-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-022-10246-y
Nicoletti BNicoletti B(2022)Bionic Banking Business ModelBeyond Fintech10.1007/978-3-030-96217-3_4(65-121)Online publication date: 12-Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96217-3_4
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents