“The product manual is the bible”: The usability of a heavy machinery product manual in information seeking
Rainio, Sonja (2024)
2024
Kielten maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in Languages
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2024-04-24
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202404083371
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202404083371
Tiivistelmä
This study examines the usability of a heavy machinery product manual and the information seeking processes the document’s users engage in when they utilise the document. The purposes of this study are to describe the information seeking processes of the product manual’s users, to evaluate the usability of the product manual based on the users’ reported experiences, and to determine alterations which could improve the usability of the document. This study was conducted for a heavy industry company which operates globally in the industrial engineering and manufacturing industry.
The theoretical framework of the thesis combines two fields of research, information behaviour and usability research. The aspects of these fields that are relevant to this study include information needs and information seeking as well as the facets of usability in textual systems. This study examines the relationship between these two fields in the context of hardware user documentation.
The material was collected with focus group discussions and the analysis was conducted with a qualitative content analysis. The participants in the discussions represent real users of the product manual, tendering engineers and design engineers. These users routinely utilise the product manual in a professional information seeking context.
The results of this study suggest that the usability of a documented information source is closely determined by efficiency in terms of time-consumption. If users perceive the document as inefficient to use, they typically opt for optional strategies of information seeking. The key usability issue as regards the product manual is efficiency, which comprises several aspects, such as the findability of information, information design, and the comprehensibility of information. These areas of efficiency should be considered in the documentation process because they can improve the usability of the documentation in information seeking.
The theoretical framework of the thesis combines two fields of research, information behaviour and usability research. The aspects of these fields that are relevant to this study include information needs and information seeking as well as the facets of usability in textual systems. This study examines the relationship between these two fields in the context of hardware user documentation.
The material was collected with focus group discussions and the analysis was conducted with a qualitative content analysis. The participants in the discussions represent real users of the product manual, tendering engineers and design engineers. These users routinely utilise the product manual in a professional information seeking context.
The results of this study suggest that the usability of a documented information source is closely determined by efficiency in terms of time-consumption. If users perceive the document as inefficient to use, they typically opt for optional strategies of information seeking. The key usability issue as regards the product manual is efficiency, which comprises several aspects, such as the findability of information, information design, and the comprehensibility of information. These areas of efficiency should be considered in the documentation process because they can improve the usability of the documentation in information seeking.