Comparing Styles of Presenting Technical Information

Abstract

A group of 64 undergraduates showed no significantly greater ability to locate information in a well-produced technical pamphlet than a similar group using a poorly printed, verbose version. However, subjects spontaneously declared that they would not have read the poor version voluntarily. When the test was repeated with 16 less motivated subjects, the group using the poor version performed significantly worse than that using the more readable version.