Automatic Documentation Generation: The Rnteraction of Text and Examples

Abstract

Abstract : Good documentation is critical for user acceptance of any system, and empirical studies have shown that examples can greatly increase effectiveness of system documentation. However, studies also show that badly integrated text and examples can be actually detrimental compared to using either text or examples alone. It is thus clear that in order to provide useful documentation automatically, a system must be capable of providing well-integrated examples to illustrate its points. Precious work on example generation has concentrated on the issue of retrieving or constructing examples. In this paper, we look at the integration of text and examples. We identify how text and examples co-constrain each other and show that a system must consider example generation as an integral part of the generation process. Finally, we present such a system, together with example. Documentation, Natural language generation examples.