**7. Prototyping and user testing**

To find the answers to the above questions, instructions for a particular product, a lighting table (Figure 6) were chosen and rewritten according to the standards and regulations for planning product instructions. Two versions of product instructions were then produced: a printed version combining text and images (Figure 7); a multimedia version of the product instructions, which used the same text and imagery information but involved extra sound, animation and were designed as interactive (Figure 8). Participants for the tests were separated into two groups: Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants.

The people who are producing product instructions should be trained to write and produce effective product instructions. They should understand standards for formulating

To make product instructions easily accessible, easily stored and updated, they could be created and distributed digitally, through networks, for example Internet or 3G networks. This will provide product instructions available at anytime, from anywhere around the world and could be translated into multiple languages with a very low budget for maintenance. There were 1,966,514,816 Internet users around the world in June 2010. The number has grown by 444.8 % between 2000 to 2010, and it is still growing (internetworldstats.com, 2010). On the other hand, based on Nielsen's estimate (2010), 50% of US mobile subscribers (142.8 million) will be Smartphone users by 2011, which means they could get access to a 3G network very easily on their phones. Similar trends are actually

To fulfil requirements from users with different intelligence levels and learning styles, instructions could involve multiple media for example, sound, music, animation etc., as well as the traditional media of text and images. Product instructions might also be interactive so that they could be read in almost any order. Once instructions are designed to be interactive rather than linear, they can be read by choice. This should enable the users to reread instructions and to repeat the tasks when an error is discovered. This will also minimise the amount of time spent on reading instructions, especially for those inexperienced users who have little prior knowledge. Also, a combination of minimalist and systematically complete

Ideally, multimedia instructions should help people with different leaning styles and strengths to operate products easier, quicker and safer. However, it has been suggested by Tapscott ( 2009) that Digital Natives (those who have grown up with digital devices) and Digital Immigrants (those who learnt to use digital devices as an adult) learn things differently and have different opinions on digital products and interactive works. Therefore the key challenges for this study were to find differences between improved traditional instructions and multimedia instructions in use; to discover if multimedia instructions are going to perform better in terms of their effectiveness and inclusiveness; to determine if multimedia instructions can be better solutions for all users, including the Digital Natives

To find the answers to the above questions, instructions for a particular product, a lighting table (Figure 6) were chosen and rewritten according to the standards and regulations for planning product instructions. Two versions of product instructions were then produced: a printed version combining text and images (Figure 7); a multimedia version of the product instructions, which used the same text and imagery information but involved extra sound, animation and were designed as interactive (Figure 8). Participants for the tests were

separated into two groups: Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants.

instructions might be able to offer the most productive learning experience.

instructions and be able to apply them while doing their jobs.

**5. Possible solutions** 

**6. Design challenges** 

and the Digital Immigrants.

**7. Prototyping and user testing** 

happening everywhere across the world.

Fig. 6. A photo of the selected product and its original instructions.

Fig. 7. Layout for the redesigned printed version of product instructions.

Product Instructions in the Digital Age 47

Fig. 9. The main goal and sub-goals of the refined tasks.

1. Time for finishing all tasks, (from the beginning to the end).

To examine efficiency of different types of instructions, the following indices were used:

significant difference between the total time consumption of different instruction.

Overall, Data suggested that all participants, who used multimedia instructions, used on average 1379 seconds (22minutes 59 seconds), with a standard deviation of 220 seconds, which seemed to be slightly shorter to those of printed instruction users, who spent 1390 seconds (23 minutes 10 seconds), with a standard deviation of 213 seconds (Table 1). The difference was small therefore the authors were keen to find out if there was statistically

There is no significant difference between the average total time of users using either

There is a significant difference between the average total time of users using either printed

The authors assumed that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups. A t-test was then carried out. to find out the confidence level of this hypothesis. The 2-tailed t- test returned a P-value of 0.89. Since the P-value (0.89) was greater than the significance level (0.05), the null hypothesis was accepted. This indicated that there was no

significant difference between the efficiency of two versions of product instructions.

**8.2 Performance on efficiency** 

2. Time for each task section.

Null hypothesis: T1 = T2

or multimedia instructions.

printed or multimedia instructions. Alternative hypothesis: T1 ≠ T2

Fig. 8. Screen examples for the multimedia version of product instructions.

The choices of the participants had to be carefully planned in order to ensure that their human performance characteristics were checked prior to the beginning of the tests. This was done using a method traditionally used by work-study officers to establish what a hundred percent effort or rating looks like. A full pack of cards is dealt into four hands in a period of 52 seconds. It was ensured that the participants could all carry out this task in periods between 50 and 56 seconds. Thus their human performance characteristics could all be considered similar.

They were asked to follow either the printed instructions for the product or the multimedia ones to complete the same set of given tasks. The tasks included 1) using instructions to find information, 2) checking components of the product and 3) assembling. Their actions were monitored; timing was recorded; errors were observed and feedback was collected at the end.
