Focuses on diagrams giving overviews of complex technical information as facilitators for adult subjects using computers to learn about the business activities of a fictitious family. Finds that features of the author's control over the reader's encounter with the diagram influences whether readers will interrupt their reading to study the…

Discusses how readers process text and the implications this processing has for technical writers. Presents guidelines for designing documents so that readers can better understand and apply what they have learned from text. (JAD)

Investigates the role of signaling (structural cues that announce or emphasize content or reveal content relationships) in helping good readers comprehend expository text. Finds that signals do improve a reader's comprehension, particularly comprehension two weeks after the reading of a passage and comprehension of superordinate and superordinate…