The effects of examples and principles in instructions for computer software

Prior work found that computer-naive subjects who received instructions written at a general level took longer to accomplish initial word processing tasks than those who received more specific documentation tailored to specific tasks. However, the general-instruction subjects transferred more successfully to new tasks and tended to show superior long-term performance R. Catrambone (1990). The current study examined whether adding an example or a principle to general instructions would help subjects get started on initial tasks more quickly. Users who were given a principle performed an initial deletion task more quickly than users who were not given this principle. The presence or absence of an example did not affect initial performance. However, the example differed from the initial task. These results suggest that a principle helps users disambiguate general instructions by providing a rationale for potentially misunderstood actions. An example apparently does not help early performance if it fails to match the initial task