1. User Support

2. Contents Types of user support Requirements of user support systems
Types of help systems
Authoring issues

3. User Support
Some claim that a well designed interactive system will require no additional user support
This is untrue of even the best systems
Systems require four types of support
Quick reference
Task-specific help
Full explanation
tutorial

4. Quick Reference
This is a short form of help to remind the user of the syntax of a command
Often, it is automatic if the user pauses for a certain period
It can take the form of
Tooltips
file name completion
Code assistants

5. Quick Reference
A Java Tool Tip
A Code Assistant

6. Task-Specific Help
This is used when the user encounters a problem while performing a task and needs help to complete the task
This is often implemented as context-sensitive help
A help button is provided on a dialog
When the button is clicked, help is provided on the dialog being used
Often, this is implemented as simply links into the existing online documentation

7. Full Explanation
This is the full explanation of how the system or a specific feature works
This information is usually consulted by experts
It is often not immediately available to novices to avoid overwhelming them
It can be provided online or in paper form or both

8. Tutorial
A tutorial serves to introduce the new user to how to use a system
It demonstrates how to use the system to accomplish practical goals
Often organized as
System concepts
Overview of the interface
Your first use of the system
A list of how-to do specific tasks

9. Contents Types of user support Requirements of user support systems
Types of help systems
Authoring issues

10. Requirements of User Support Systems
What would the ideal help system be like?
This is a difficult question to answer since it depends upon
The nature of the application
The anticipated users of the system
We will list desirable features of an idealized help system
Real systems might differ from this, often for good reasons

11. Availability The user should be able to
Access the help system while running the program
Access help while the program is not running
Access help while running another program
These goals can be achieved if the help system
Runs concurrently with the system
Is run in a windowed environment where it is not dependent on the parent application for rendering

12. Accuracy & Completeness
Applications are updated regularly
Often, the documentation is forgotten and allowed to become outdated
This can result in help actually being wrong
Obviously, this must be avoided
It is also important to ensure that all features have been documented since a few can be easily overlooked

13. Consistency A program might have
On-line help
Paper manuals
Context-sensitive help
It is important that it be consistent in terms of
Content – they all state the same things
Terminology – they all use the same terms
Style – they all look similar

14. Robustness Help systems are often used by people who are confused
This makes it important that
The help system is easy to use
The help system should not crash
The help system should have good error handling
The help system should have predictable behaviour

15. Flexibility
The help system should be able to adapt to the needs of the user
It should offer simple help to novices
Advanced help to experts
These goals can be achieved in various ways
Modularized help systems
Context-sensitive help
Adaptive help systems which infer the user’s expertise and the task being performed
Hypertext systems which allow exploration to various levels of depth

16. Unobtrusive
The help system should not interfere with the user’s normal work
The help system should not interfere with the operation of other programs
Do not grab focus from the user
Do not lock the system while help is active
Do not use system or global modality for help systems

17. Contents Types of user support Requirements of user support systems
Types of help systems
Authoring issues

18. Types of Help Systems There are different types of help systems
They differ because of
The technology on which they are implemented
The sophistication of the user
The needs and nature of the application

19. Command Assistance This provides help when the user requests it
Examples include
UNIX man
DOS help
Windows help
These systems work well if the user knows what they are looking for
They do not work well if the user wants to explore new capabilities of the system

20. Command Prompts These are used in command line interfaces
When the user enters an incorrect command, they display the correct syntax of the command
They can also use menus to help the user issue the command they want

21. Command Prompts
IBM’s Time Sharing Option (TSO) is a command line system which uses a menu (ISPF) to help the users issue commands

22. Context-sensitive Help
These are systems which provide help on the context in which the user is working
They often take the form of a help button on a dialog
They save the user from having to locate the relevant parts of the help system

23. Online Tutorials
These are systems which guide the user through the system
through examples and
might let the user perform operations under the systems guidance
Often have limited intelligence and can recognize incorrect input as correct

24. Online Tutorials
Training Wheels is an interface proposed by researchers at IBM
The user is presented with a full version of the interface but with limited functionality
This lets them explore the system without being able to do any real damage
If they access an area which has been disabled, they are told it is unavailable

25. Online Documentation
At its simplest this is just the paper documentation stored on the computer
Advantages
Don’t have to find manuals
Searchable
Disadvantages
more difficult to read text off a computer screen
Provides more information than the user wants
Can still be difficult to find what you are looking for

26. Online Documentation
One approach to placing manuals online is to use hypertext
Allows interrelated items to be linked
Allows tables of contents to be linked
Can make finding things easier
Suffers from the problem where the user’s path is so complicated they get lost in the document

27. Online Documentation An alternative approach is minimal documentation
This is a cut-down version of the full manual with just the essentials retained
This makes it
Easy to read
Easy to navigate
Users can learn a task with minimal documentation 40% faster than with the full documentation

28. Wizards
A wizard is a program which helps a user perform a complex task
It leads the user step by step
It asks the user a series of questions to determine what should be done
It hides the complexity of the underlying interface
They often let the user back up to change previous decisions
Some provide progress indicators, especially for long, involved tasks
They allow novices to perform complex tasks
Are great for infrequently performed tasks

29. Wizards The drawbacks of wizards include
They can be overly rigid and constrain the user
Many options are omitted
Since the user does not see the output or commands issued, he or she does not learn how to use the underlying commands themselves

30. Assistants
Assistants are software tools which monitor user behaviour and try to offer hints or suggestions when they recognize particular sequences
Eager was one of the early systems
When it sees the user repeating actions, a cat appears suggesting the next step
The cat is unobtrusive and can be controlled by the user

31. Assistants Clippy is the Microsoft Office Assistant
Clippy was despised as irritating and unhelpful
Clippy failed to be unobtrusive
The user was presented with long lists to read
Distracting animations were performed for no reason
The user was unable to continue to work effectively
Many of the suggestions were wrong or inappropriate
Many found an animated paper clip to be more annoying than cute

32. Assistants Clippy has been retired to the big bit bucket in the sky…
He can be reincarnated in the latest office by turning him on or off, under user control
His main functions have been taken over by smart tags
Small icons which appear near where the user is working
Clicking on them produces help
Ignore them or go on to another task and they disappear

33. Assistants

34. Agents
Microsoft agent is a generalization of the assistant that supports
3-D animated characters
Text-to-speech
Speech recognition
This evolved from the earlier attempt to produce an agent to aid the user, called Microsoft Bob

35. Agents Clippy was the first use of the Microsoft Agent software
Clippy’s behaviour was controlled by a sophisticated Bayesian probability program
To date, all of the agents produced by Microsoft have been deemed failures

36. Agents The user’s displeasure was not limited to Clippy
There were a variety of other characters which could be substituted
Users found these to be equally annoying
Peedy
Merlin
Genie
Robby

37. Agents
The failure of agents is because they ignored two main factors in human psychology
Human are immediately distracted by motion in their peripheral vision. Thus, the animation distracted the user
Faces or caricatures of faces are highly distracting
And finally, the interruptions were often at comically inappropriate and annoying times
The result was that the agents were almost universally despised

38. Aero Sidebar Windows Vista is introducing the sidebar
This can hold a variety of information, including help
It will replace the use of agents
It looks to be far less intrusive and can provide help across applications

39. Aero Sidebar

40. Adaptive Help Systems Every user has a different level of skill
Familiar with a subset of the functionality
Expertise in some systems but none in others
Different levels of understanding
Adaptive help systems adapt to the skill level of the user and offer help and suggestions appropriate to the user

41. User Modeling
Adaptive systems build a model of the user and his or her skill level
This model takes time to be built
Most systems start with a generic user model and refine this as it observes how the user behaves
There are different ways to represent the user model

42. Quantification
Categories are created based on the user’s level of expertise
Real users are then placed into one of these categories based on behaviour
Each category has pre-defined help that will be provided to members of that category
Users will be moved between categories if the expertise they demonstrate changes

43. Stereotypes
This creates categories of stereotypical users rather than just categories based on expertise
Once again, users are assigned to stereotypes by comparing user behaviour with that for the stereotype
Stereotypes perform well is the stereotypes are well chosen and represent actual user types

44. Overlay Models A model of an expert user is constructed
Each user is then represented by what they have in common with the expert model and by the differences
The advantage of this technique is that the system knows what the ideal user is and can measure progress in attaining it

45. Task Modeling
The system must be able to recognize the task the user is performing before it can offer help
Many systems do this by storing a series of steps and then comparing user actions to these steps
This fails when the user approaches the problem in an unconventional manner
Task recognition is a problem for both adaptive help systems and agents

46. Knowledge Representation
Adaptive systems must be able to store information on
The user
User models
Tasks
Representation techniques are drawn from artificial intelligence
Rule-based techniques
Frame-based techniques
Network-based techniques
Example-based techniques

47. Rule-based Techniques
This represents knowledge as a series of rules and facts
This information is interpreted by a an inference mechanism
These are the techniques used by expert systems

48. Rule-based TechniquesIF
command is EDIT file
AND
lastCommand is COMPILE file
THEN
task is DEBUG
action is “describe debugger”

49. Frame-based Techniques
A frame is a data structure containing labeled slots or attributes
Each attribute describes some aspect of the user
User
expertise: novice
command: EDIT file
lastCommand: Compile file
sessionErrors: 6
action: describe debugger

50. Network-based Techniques
These represent knowledge as relationships between facts
This is commonly implemented as a semantic network
CC is an instance of COMPILE
COMPILE is a COMMAND
COMPILE is related to DEBUG
COMPILE is related to EDIT
Debugger facilitates DEBUG

51. Example-based Techniques
These represent command patters as linked structures
They could be stored in a decision tree
For example
EDIT file
COMPILE file
This would be recognized as a task and indicate that information on debugging is appropriate

52. Problems with Knowledge Representation
It takes a lot of time to gather the information
It takes an expert to provide the information
Gathering information on individual users takes time
Interpreting user actions is difficult and prone to error

53. Contents Types of user support Requirements of user support systems
Types of help systems
Authoring issues

54. Help Design Issues Initiative
Should help intrude on the user or should the user request help?
If it intrudes, it can disrupt the user
If it is invoked only when the user wants it, it will not be able to bring new techniques to the attention of the user
The solution is to allow the user to query help at any time and for help to intrude on the user in the least disruptive manner

55. Effect
Agents and adaptive help often store large amounts of information on users and tasks
This information is expensive to create and maintain
Often, it can be pruned to reduce it to the essential information for the task
This minimizes the information to only that required for the necessary effect

56. Scope Should help be offered at the application or system level?
Modeling users at the system level is far more complex than at the application level
Dealing with concurrent execution and interleaved activities with many applications makes it even more difficult

57. Presentation Issues How is help requested? How is help displayed?
Help button on screen
Help button on keyboard
How is help displayed?
Full-screen or windowed
Pop-up dialogs
The choice depends on the type of help and the amount to be displayed

58. Presentation Issues How much to display? Writing style
The amount displayed should not be too large as it is harder to read
Hypertext allows text to be broken into smaller units
Writing style
Clear, concise, to the point
Avoid use of unfamiliar terminology