Procedural and declarative information in user instructions: what we do and don't know about these information types

The use and the effects of different information types in user instructions are not completely clear. Research showed that procedural information (information about the actions) is the most important information type during use. Research results about the effects of declarative information (explanatory information) are not conclusive. It is known that users are interested in declarative information, but it is not known in which situations they read this information and in which situations this information affects task performance. Furthermore, it is not clear which different types of declarative information have to be distinguished. In this paper, we describe what is known about different information types in user instructions and what is not yet known. On the basis of our analysis, we propose follow-up experiments and we recommend practitioners to consider the possible advantages and disadvantages of including declarative information in instructions for use.