Assessing the Need for Printed and Online Documentation: A Study of Customer Preference and Use

• Published in: The Journal of business communication (1973) Vol. 38; no. 3; pp. 285 - 314
• Main Authors: Smart, Karl L., Whiting, Matthew E., DeTienne, Kristen Bell
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks, CA SAGE Publications 01.07.2001; Association for Business Communication; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Annual reports; Business Communication; Business communications services; Communication; Communication Research; Computer Software; Computers; Customer satisfaction; Customers; Design; Designers; Document delivery; Documentation; Electronic documents; Electronic Equipment; Electronic records; Ethnography; Evaluation; Help Systems; Higher Education; Information Dissemination; Intellectual capital; Knowledge management; Online Systems; Polls & surveys; Preferences; Printed Materials; Product choice; Software; Software industry; Studies; Success; Surveys; Technical Writing; Telephone Surveys; United States; Information Value; Customer Satisfaction; Contextual Inquiry; Computer Software Documentation; Printed Manuals; Online Help
• ISSN: 0021-9436; 2329-4884; 2329-4892
• DOI: 10.1177/002194360103800306

The document has become one of the few tangible deliverables of intellectual capi tal in an information age. As the value of business and technical communication has grown, the importance of designing information to meet customers' needs has increased. This article explores the design option of channel choice or medium selection (delivering information in print or electronic form) and reports the results of two studies that examine customers' preferences and use of printed man uals and online help, common documents used in the computer software industry. Through the past several years, many businesses have been anxious to move docu mentation online to reduce costs. However, research has not adequately addressed how users react to print versus online documentation or whether this approach is cost effective over time, taking into account customer satisfaction, repeat sales, and other business issues. The first study reports the results of a survey of 400 users of a word-process ing application and their preferences and use of printed and online documenta tion. The second study uses an ethnographic approach, contextual inquiry (CI), to examine 18 subjects' use of printed and online documentation in context. Results showed that users prefer different types of documentation for different types of tasks. The implications of these findings for business communication practice and research are discussed