RE:online Documents

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A week or two ago, I posted a lengthy dissertation that cited experimental 
results indicating substantial reductions in comprehension and retention 
when when people attempt to read typical on-line docs, particularly those 
of a technical nature.  Those and other studies also indicated that there 
are significant improvements when such documents resemble the typography 
and layout of well-designed printed books. A number of you asked me to 
provide some citations for those findings.

Although I believe most net surfers and users of  on-line help would 
confirm these findings from their own experience,  I provide below some 
additional citations bearing on the issues discussed in my earlier post on 
this thread.

First, try the "Human-Computer Interactions Bibliography" at 
http://www.hcibib.org. This site has a pretty good search engine and a big 
list of abstracts.

This recent thesis addresses the issue. Also the bibliography in this 
thesis seems to have several relevant references: 
http://www.users.redcreek.net/mullanp/Thesis/intro.htm

Dr. Jakob Neilsen has a web site with a big collection of his articles on 
web readability and usability: http://www.useit.com/
Take a look at the list of articles under the "Alertbox" heading, then 
browse around. Given his status in the field, he would probably be a good 
person to ask about further sources.



====================
| Nullius in Verba |
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Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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