ISSUES IN DEVELOPING AN ONLINE ADVISORY SYSTEM FOR TEXT WRITERS
An online advisory system is described which offers guidelines and recom mendations for text writers. The system tries to meet two essential require ments: easy switching from the text processing software to the online advice, and optimal access which enables the user to find relevant materials as easy as possible. The authors describe some studies with prototypes of the system. An analysis of information seeking behavior yields some fundamental issues to be investigated in order to improve the usefulness of the system in the future. Nowadays it is hard to imagine a technical communicator not using an advanced word processor with features such as a spelling checker, automatic hyphenation, and a thesaurus. Using advanced authoring systems is becoming more and more a common practice. One component of an advanced authoring system might be an online system providing help for textual and linguistic puzzles arising during the writing task. Professional writers are familiar with traditional dictionaries, grammars, style guides, publication guides, ISO guidelines etcetera. But consulting such refer ences can be very digressive and time consuming. Many writers, when facing a linguistic problem or feeling uncertain on a spelling issue, try to avoid the problem. They choose another expression which does not bring up such problems, instead of taking a reference book out of their bookcase and looking up the required information. Moreover, the range of sources consulted by most writers (c) 1994, Baywood Publishing Co. Inc. 139 ONLINE ADVISORY SYSTEM 141 CATS: REQUIREMENTS AND DESIGN Online advisory systems can only be expected to be effective if they have clear advantages compared to their hard copy counterparts. The most important advantage of online help should lie in the speed through which specific informa tion can be found. Apart from the hardware capacity, two CATS requirements seem critical here. 1. It should be very easy to switch from the word processor to CATS and vice versa, and, if desired, to copy standard phrases or text blocks into the actual document. 2. An adequate 'access structure' should enable users to find the relevant information as quickly and smoothly as possible. The expression 'access structure' refers to the whole means that help the reader locate information: menus, keywords, content lists, hyperlinks, etc. To attain easy switching from a word processing system to CATS and vice versa, CATS was initially designed as a memory resident program, to be activated by pressing a specific key combination. Thus the user could switch to CATS from any word processing system running under DOS. CATS then created a window on the screen, in which the online information was presented. If the cursor was in the upper half of the word processor's screen, the CATS window appeared on the lower part, and if the cursor was on the lower part, the help screen appeared on the upper part. This permitted the user to keep looking at the text he was writing. However, the user could enlarge the window if he wanted to, which made it possible to display more CATS information on the screen. The new version of CATS has been developed as a Windows help file. So concurrent running of CATS and a word processor or copying of elements from CATS into the text has even become easier. From the beginning, the developers of CATS have paid special attention to the access structure, which should provide optimal search support to the users of the system. Several features were built in to ensure this. First, both versions of CATS allow context sensitive searching. If users can come up with an adequate term or phrase describing the issue they seek, they can type this term or phrase in their text and activate CATS. If the term or phrase occurs in the index list of CATS, the corresponding information is displayed in the CATS window automatically. If the user does not choose context sensitive help, then CATS is entered at the Main Menu, which shows its main topics as well as an option to activate the index. In the Windows version of CATS there are several routes providing access to the information. Using a content list or index is standard in Windows help programs, but CATS allows full text search as well. The user can type any keyword in the help text section he is searching. Next, the system displays the titles of all sections containing that string. Now the user can decide which section to display. seems to be very limited. For instance, a survey by Lentz and De Vet among professional free lance writers in The Netherlands pointed out that most of them only consult the leading Dutch dictionary (Van Dale) the official Dutch spelling guide (Woordenlijst der Nederlandse Taal) and one leading textbook on sentence writing (Schrijfwijzer) [1] One major advantage of an online help system would be that searching goes much faster than searching in books or other paper materials. Consequently, authors can be expected to be more willing to use it. Moreover, online information can easily be updated, expanded, and adapted to the individual needs of the user; thus it could also provide better quality. On the grammatical and stylistic level, style checkers such as Grammatik 5 or Rightwriter seem to be convenient devices for writers. However, experiments indicated that such programs may be of little significance in practice. They signal only a small portion of real problems, and produce a considerable amount of false alarms (problems indicated by the program which are not real problems) .1 Most grammar and style checkers not only consist of a diagnostic mechanism, but include also an advisory part, containing guidelines for grammar and style. Such advisory systems also exist apart from spelling and style checkers. Examples for English writers are Editorial Advis or and the software versions of the textbook Shipley Style Guide and Strunk White's Elements o f Style. In Utrecht such an advisory system for Dutch writers has been under develop ment since 1991. The system is called CATS: an acronym for Computer Adviezen voor TekstSchrijvers (Computer Advice for Text Writers) CATS is a co production of Niceware Utrecht and Utrecht University (Centre for Language and Communication) The first version of CATS was written in PDC PROLOG and was running under MS DOS as a memory resident program. Prototypes have been developed containing recommendations and guidelines concerning issues like how to write a readable text, how to write an adequate press release, and how to design an effective access structure for software manuals. Recently a CATSversion running under MS Windows has been completed. In this article we will discuss some issues concerning online advisory programs for writing tasks, using CATS as a reference. First we will discuss some basic task requirements and show how CATS was designed to meet them. Next, we will report some test results with different prototypes of CATS, and after that, we will discuss certain requirements in more detail, particularly those related to the accessibility of the system. Throughout we will illustrate these problems using a general model of information behavior. Finally, by way of conclusion, we will briefly consider future prospects for online advisory systems like CATS. 1 For a review of relevant research, cf. (2) UNLIIMh AUVISUHY SYS I tM 143 Four professional technical writers, working for a leading software company in The Netherlands, tested the second prototype. Their job responsibilities included writing software manuals and other technical documents. They revised some parts of the first draft of a manual which was developed by one of their colleagues. The assignment included four tasks: 1) revising numbers and titles in chapters 1 and 2 of the manual, 2) revising the content list for these chapters, 3) constructing an index for chapter 20, and 4) formulating good page headers and page footers for chapters 15 and 16. They were asked to think aloud while performing their tasks, and the computer screen was videotaped. With this method it was possible to keep track of their course of actions, including their uses of CATS. After the writers finished the tasks, they were asked to complete a questionnaire. It turned out that the subjects activated the CATS system frequently, and that they were positive about the practical value of the online information. The most interesting observations were made with respect to the route followed by the subjects: Although CATS allowed for context sensitive searches (see above) the subjects almost never used that facility. The subjects mostly entered CATS via the content list in the Main Menu. The index was used very rarely. If it was, the subjects most often chose an unsuitable entry. Hyperlinks were used in almost all cases where they were appropriate with respect to the problem which caused consulting CATS. BARRIERS TO SUCCESSFUL INFORMATION SEEKING The Tanis study showed that in spite of the presence of several access structures in CATS, accessibility can still be an important stumbling block for the users of CATS. Therefore, a more profound study of this aspect of CATS seems necessary. As a basis for this, we used a model of information seeking behavior derived from the existing research literature. The model a shortened version of the one pub lished by Steehouder [5] consists of five sub tasks that form part of an informa tion seeking task: 1. Detecting the need for information 2. Formulating the problem 3. Locating the relevant information 4. Understanding the information 5. Inferring an action plan The model depicts the essential stages of a CATS consultation. Such a consult ation will only take place if the writer feels the need of guidelines, suggestions or other support in his writing task. Next he has to find an appropriate description for instance a keyword to define his needs and to use as an entry to the system. IH PS I J M I M O C I N MINL/ O I C tllU U