How Helpdesk Agents Help Clients

Helpdesks are an important channel for supporting users of technical products and software. This study analyses some phenomena in telephone helpdesk calls, using conversational analysis as a methodological and theoretical framework. Helpdesk calls are characterized by the common goal of the helpdesk agent and the client to understand and solve the client's problem with a particular technical device or with computer software. Both parties cooperate in a complex manner to define and diagnose the problem, and to solve it. The paper identifies the typical structure of a helpdesk call and describes a number of strategies that the participants use to make the call successful

Acquiring Procedural Knowledge of a Technology Interface: Introduction to this Special Issue.

Guidelines and models for procedural instructions can be supported by three types of research. Careful analytical studies of collections of instructions can help to identify, describe, and evaluate strategies that writers and designers apply. Empirical studies measure the effects of document variables on the performance of users, thus offering evidence, contraevidence, or refinements for existing guidelines. Theoretical studies, finally, aim to describe and explain the behavior of readers of instructions. To designers and writers, they provide a deeper insight in the underlying cognitive processes that determine success or failure of their work. This special issue offers research articles in all three categories

Using role sets to engage and persuade visitors of websites that promote safe sex.

Promoting safe sexual behavior is difficult because of the face threatening nature of such messages. Too much facework involves the risk of the message to become unclear and noncommittal, while too little facework might end in the reader resisting the message, and even boomerang effects (reactance). In this paper, it is argued that creating appropriate author and reader roles (role sets) might be an effective way to escape from this dilemma. Some examples are analyzed to identify different role sets and to discuss how they can help. The paper concludes with some considerations on the effect of creating role sets on the persuasiveness of Web sites

Author and reader in Instructions for use

Instructions for use should not be seen as merely instrumental-they should also persuade the reader to read the text and to act accordingly. Moreover, they should establish a positive image of the product and the manufacturer. In this paper, a collection of instructions for use is used to identify strategies that technical writers apply to fulfill these `rhetorical' demands; especially strategies that involve the author-reader relationship. The analysis shows that the implied author's role is not only that of a neutral instructor, but also that of a teacher or a salesman. The reader is not only addressed as a technical `operator', but also as a `user' who applies the product in a `real-life task'. The analysis also shows that technical writers sometimes use subtle politeness strategies to compensate for `face threatening acts' (FTAs). However, all of these rhetorical strategies seem to be applied very unsystematically and often clumsily. The conclusion is that technical writers may be aware of rhetorical demands for their documents, but that the instrumental function still is paramount in their eye

Some effects of system information in instructions for use

An experiment was carried out to investigate whether it is useful to add system information to procedural information in instructional text. It was assumed that readers of instructions construct both a procedural and a system mental model, and that the latter enables the readers to infer possible missing information in procedural instructions. Moreover, it was assumed that system information would increase the cognitive load during reading and practicing, and that it would affect the appreciation of the instructions as well as the self-efficacy of the reader. The participants in the experiment read instructions and practiced with a fictitious machine before performing a number of tasks and answering a questionnaire. The results indicate that system information increased the cognitive load during reading and decreased self-efficacy, while the instructional text with system information was judged as more difficult. The effect on performance is limited: system information leads to faster performance for correctly completed tasks

How can we make user instructions motivational?

Good technical instructions are often viewed as 'cool, concise and professional', but there are good arguments to pay attention to their persuasive and motivational aspects as well. Until now, only analyses of existing instructions have been published, while guidelines for making instructions motivational are not yet studied carefully. We present four strategies that can be followed, and an experiment that was meant to test the effects. The results show that motivational elements do increase the user's appreciation of the instructions, but have no effect on performance, self efficacy, or appreciation of the product. However, there are indications that further research may show effects

How can I help you? User instructions in telephone calls

We a small corpus of instructions given in phone calls to customers who need support for programming their universal remote control, to make it suitable for their particular TV set VCR, Audio, etc. Typically, in these calls the operator or 'agent' coaches the client while the client is performing actions with the equipment (turning it on, pressing buttons and codes, directing it towards the TV, etc.). We compared these oral instructions with the concept of a 'streamlined step procedure' (Farkas, 1999) and other principles that are well-known from the literature about written instructions. Our conclusion is that many problems arise because the operator does not provide 'meta-communication' about the goals that have to be achieved, and because the feedback given by the client is neglected or misinterpreted

Making sense of step-by-step procedures

Procedural instructions that consist of only a sequence of steps will probably be executable, but nevertheless ¿meaningless¿ to users of technical devices. The paper discusses three features that can make procedural instructions more meaningful: adding functional coordinating information, adding information about the use of the technical device in real life, and adding operational information about how the device works. The research literature supports the effectiveness of the first feature, but offers little evidence that real life elements enhance understanding of instructions. As for operational information, the research suggests that users are willing to read it, and that it contributes to better understanding and performance in the long term, but only if it is closely related to the procedure. As a conclusion, we propose a theoretical framework that assumes three levels of mental representation of instructions: syntactical, semantic, and situationa

Designing and evaluating procedural instructions with the four components model.

Procedures form the heart of user instructions, tutorials, reference guides, job-aids, online help, way-finding instructions, medicine prescriptions, and so on. This paper summarizes the four component model, which is intended to integrate best practices and research outcomes