The effects of document language quality on consumer perceptions and intentions

Pedraz-Delhaes, Arancha; Aljukhadar, Muhammad; Sénécal, Sylvain

doi:10.1002/cjas.162

Cited by 3 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 64 publications

(66 reference statements)

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“…Chen and Dibb (2010) also propose that information should be sufficient, easy to understand, up to date, accurate and consistent. As a result of their comprehensive review, Pedraz-Delhaes et al (2010) point out that high-quality documentation should be well written, understandable, accurate, readable and functional and should have a usable structure, clear content, consistent terminology, images and diagrams. Studies on information quality and the technical documentation literature also provide evidence about potential elements of UMQ.…”

Section: Conceptual Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior studies (Gardner, 1970; Johnson and Kellaris, 1988; Rao and Monroe, 1988) point out that customers’ familiarity and experience with a product influence their quality evaluations (Völckner and Hofmann, 2007). When consumers do not have enough knowledge about the product or the company, the manuals may provide a first insight to evaluate the product quality, usability, and performance (Pedraz-Delhaes et al , 2010). Ganier (2004) also suggests that the usage behaviors associated with manuals differ according to the user’s prior knowledge about the product.…”

Section: Conceptual Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such manuals help users become more productive, reducing the cost of customer support and the cost of field maintenance and increasing the sales and repeat purchase of the brand (Hackos, 1994; Smart et al , 2001). Despite these significant paybacks, a limited number of studies has addressed user manuals in the relevant literature, and those studies have mostly focused on whether consumers consult the manuals (Wright et al , 1982; Peterson, 1984; Mehlenbacher et al , 2002; Tsai et al , 2012), manual usage behavior of consumers (Wright et al , 1982; Jansen and Balijon, 2002) and the ideal design of the manuals (Schriver, 1993; Reinert et al , 2007; Pedraz-Delhaes et al , 2010). Some studies have examined technical documents and documentation issues for specific products, such as software or automobiles (Mitchell, 1993; Wiese et al , 2004; Novick et al , 2008; Van Loggem, 2014) or industrial products (You et al , 2001; Pham et al , 2002; Setchi et al , 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, users’ quality perceptions about manuals can influence how they view an organization’s products, its customer service and even the company itself (Schriver, 1993). Prior findings have also indicated that the documentation accompanying a product is a vital extrinsic cue that consumers use to evaluate both the product and the manufacturer, which implies that these documents are secondary products that add value to the primary product (Pedraz-Delhaes et al , 2010). High-quality documentation can reduce inadvertent customer-caused product failures and can increase customer satisfaction (Smart et al , 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of user manual quality on customer satisfaction: the mediating effect of perceived product quality

Gök

Ersoy

Börühan

2019

JPBM

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the elements of user manual quality and its influences on perceived product quality and customer satisfaction in an integrated model structure. Design/methodology/approach Survey method was used to evaluate user manual quality and its influences on perceived product quality and customer satisfaction. Electrical appliances consumers were chosen in our sample. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were performed to introduce, test and validate the user manual quality dimensions and also test the hypotheses. Findings The findings show a positive significant relation between user manual quality and perceived product quality, and this result demonstrates that consumers perceive user manual quality as a part of their quality evaluation related to the product. The results point out that user manual quality is essential for both low- and high-value products regarding customer satisfaction. The findings also reveal that perceived product quality mediates the influence of user manual quality on customer satisfaction. Practical implications This study reveals that providing a high-quality user manual should be an essential element of product management and development strategies. The findings also highlight the need for companies that particularly sell complex products with long product life cycles must invest in providing high-quality user manuals. This will enhance perceived product quality and in turn customer satisfaction. Originality/value Although some prior studies address user manuals in the relevant literature, these studies did not examine the elements of user manual quality and their impact on consumers’ perceptions of the product quality and their satisfaction evaluations in a research model. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. In addition, the authors found two major dimensions of user manual quality as content-related elements and representational/format-related elements of the user manual.

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Section: Conceptual Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conceptual Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The effect of user manual quality on customer satisfaction: the mediating effect of perceived product quality

Gök

Ersoy

Börühan

2019

JPBM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Thus, a defective user manual (e.g., lack of consistency with the software system) has an effect similar to defective software (off specification)-both will lead to user irritation, which will decrease user satisfaction. Pedraz-Delhaes et al (2010) also point out that users evaluate both the product and the vendor on the basis of provided documentation. According to the data presented by Spencer (1995), a good quality user manual can reduce the number of calls from 641 to 59 over a 5-month period (in 2008, the average cost of support for one call was above $32 (Markel 2012)).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The COCA quality model for user documentation

Alchimowicz

Nawrocki

2014

Software Qual J

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According to Pedraz-Delhaes, users evaluate both the product and the vendor on the basis of provided documentation. Thus, a question arises as to what quality characteristics should be taken into account when making a decision about accepting a given user manual. There are some proposals (e.g., ISO Std. 26513 and 26514), but they contain too many quality characteristics and lack orthogonality. The goal of this paper is to propose a simple quality model for user documentation, along with acceptance methods based on it. The model is to be orthogonal and complete. As a result, the COCA quality model is presented, which comprises four orthogonal quality characteristics: Completeness, Operability, Correctness, and Appearance. To check completeness, the proposed quality model has been compared with many other quality models that are directly or indirectly concerned with user documentation. Moreover, two acceptance methods are described in the paper: pure review based on ISO Std. 1028:2008, and documentation evaluation test (a type of browser evaluation test), which is aimed at assessing the operability of user documentation. Initial quality profiles have been empirically collected for both methodsthey can be used when interpreting evaluation results obtained for a given user manual.

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Influence Factors on User Manual Engagement in the Context of Smart Wearable Devices

Simon,

Qiu,

Selmeczi-Kovacs

et al. 2023

Electronics

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The emergence of smart wearable devices has gradually introduced a vast array of functions that may greatly serve the everyday needs of users. Although their ever-increasing list of capabilities may be compensated for by intuitive design, users may still have numerous reasons to engage with their user manuals. In this paper, we present four research efforts on the user manuals of smart wearable devices. Our work tackles various influence factors, investigates user behavior, and studies how the device itself affects user manual engagement, as well as the other way around. The research efforts address user experience and behavior, personal preference, device attributes, and the performance metrics of user manuals. We specifically studied smartwatches and smart bands, and explored engagement with medical-purpose smart wearables and their user manuals. As a novelty of our contribution, we classify test participants as regular users, professional users, and technical writers, based on their connection to user manuals, and separately analyze their responses to our questionnaire-based research efforts. The obtained results indicate that user experience and device complexity as influence factors have a statistically significant impact on user manual engagement for regular users, and highlight how regular users and technical writers differ in preference and search-related tasks.

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The effects of document language quality on consumer perceptions and intentions

Cited by 3 publications

References 64 publications

The effect of user manual quality on customer satisfaction: the mediating effect of perceived product quality

The effect of user manual quality on customer satisfaction: the mediating effect of perceived product quality

The COCA quality model for user documentation

Influence Factors on User Manual Engagement in the Context of Smart Wearable Devices

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