The effects of motivational elements in user instructions

Should instructional texts be purely technical, with a focus on effectiveness and efficiency, or should they also focus on satisfying and motivating users? Good arguments have been made for paying attention to motivational aspects. But only analyses of existing instructions have been published so far, and guidelines for making user instructions motivational have not yet been studied carefully. This article presents motivational strategies and an experiment to test their effects. The results show that motivational elements have little effect on users¿ effectiveness and efficiency in performing tasks, their product appreciation, and their self-efficacy, but they do increase users¿ appreciation for the instructions.