Abstract
Building toys and models are vital for learning, yet accompanying assembly instructions are often confusing and difficult to use, especially for children. This exploratory study takes the first step toward developing a taxonomy of design variables and identifying features that may have the largest impact on the usability of pictorial assembly instructions. A secondary data analysis is employed comparing product ratings and reviews from an online retailer to the design factors of the corresponding instruction sets. Not surprisingly, results show a tremendous range of design formats and lack of standardization. However, several factors emerged that were associated more often with the instructions of highly rated products including pictures without text, color illustrations, structural and action diagrams, a higher number of instructions per frame, and one or two frames per page.
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