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Part 1 (Chapter 1-4) : Fundamental Components of Interactive System

This document discusses different approaches to user support in interactive systems. It covers types of user support like quick references, tutorials, and documentation. Requirements for effective user support include availability, accuracy, consistency, robustness, flexibility, and unobtrusiveness. Common approaches include command assistance, command prompts, context-sensitive help, online tutorials, online documentation, wizards, and assistants. Adaptive help systems aim to tailor support to individual users based on context and user modeling. The document also discusses design considerations like how help is requested and displayed, and implementation issues regarding resources and help data structure.

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M. Talha Nadeem
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89 views16 pages

Part 1 (Chapter 1-4) : Fundamental Components of Interactive System

This document discusses different approaches to user support in interactive systems. It covers types of user support like quick references, tutorials, and documentation. Requirements for effective user support include availability, accuracy, consistency, robustness, flexibility, and unobtrusiveness. Common approaches include command assistance, command prompts, context-sensitive help, online tutorials, online documentation, wizards, and assistants. Adaptive help systems aim to tailor support to individual users based on context and user modeling. The document also discusses design considerations like how help is requested and displayed, and implementation issues regarding resources and help data structure.

Uploaded by

M. Talha Nadeem
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Part 1 (chapter 1-4): fundamental

components of interactive system

Part 2 (chapter 5-11): design


chapter 11

user support
user support

• Types of user support


– quick reference
– task specific help
– full explanation
– tutorial
• Provided by help and documentation
– help - problem-oriented and specific
– documentation - system-oriented and general
– same design principles apply to both
Requirements of user support
• Availability
– continuous access concurrent to main application
• Accuracy and completeness
– help matches and covers actual system behaviour
• Consistency
– between different parts of the help system and paper
documentation
• Robustness
– correct error handling and predictable behaviour
• Flexibility
– allows user to interact in a way appropriate to experience and task
• Unobtrusiveness
– does not prevent the user continuing with work
Approaches to user support

• Command assistance
– User requests help on particular command
e.g., UNIX man, DOS help
– Good for quick reference
– Assumes user know what to look for

• Command prompts
– Provide information about correct usage when an
error occurs
– Good for simple syntactic errors
– Also assumes knowledge of the command
Approaches to user support

• Context-sensitive help
– help request interpreted according to context in
which it occurs. e.g. Tooltips
Approaches to user support

• On-line tutorials
– user works through basics of application in a test
environment.
– can be useful but are often inflexible.
– no intelligence
• On-line documentation
– paper documentation is made available on computer.
– continually available in common medium
– can be difficult to browse
– hypertext used to support browsing
Approaches to user support
wizards and assistants

• wizards
– task specific tool leads the user through task, step by step,
using user’s answers to specific questions
– example: resumé
– useful for safe completion of complex or infrequent tasks
– constrained task execution so limited flexibility
– must allow user to go back
wizards and assistants

• assistants
– monitor user behaviour and offer contextual advice
– can be irritating e.g. MS paperclip
– must be under user control e.g. XP smart tags
Adaptive Help Systems

• Use knowledge of the context, individual user,


task, domain and instruction to provide help
adapted to user's needs.
Interactive systems
Intelligent systems
Adaptive help system
• Problems
– knowledge requirements considerable
– who has control of the interaction?
– what should be adapted?
– what is the scope of the adaptation?
Knowledge representation
User modeling

• All help systems have a model of the


user
– single, generic user (non-intelligent)
– user-configured model (adaptable)
– system-configure model (adaptive)
Issues in adaptive help
• Initiative
– does the user retain control or can the system direct the
interaction?
– can the system interrupt the user to offer help?
– mixed dialog?

• Effect
– what is going to be adapted and what information is needed to
do this?
– only model what is needed.

• Scope
– is modelling at application or system level?
– latter more complex
e.g. expertise varies between applications.
Designing user support

• User support is not an `add on’


– should be designed integrally with the
system.

• Concentrate on content and context of


help rather than technological issues.
Presentation issues

• How is help requested?


– command, button, function (on/off), separate
application
• How is help displayed?
– new window, whole screen, split screen,
– pop-up boxes, hint icons
• Effective presentation requires
– clear, familiar, consistent language
– instructional rather than descriptive language
– avoidance of blocks of text
– clear indication of summary and example information
Implementation issues
Is help What resources are
– operating system available?
command – screen space
– meta command – memory capacity
– application – speed

Structure of help data Issues


– single file – flexibility and extensibility
– file hierarchy – hard copy
– database – browsing

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