Vidya Ramesh
Björn Hartmann
ABSTRACT
Many people learn how to use complex authoring applications through tutorials. However, user interfaces for authoring tools differ between versions, platforms, and competing products, limiting the utility of tutorials. Our goal is to make tutorials more useful by enabling users to repurpose tutorials between similar applications. We introduce UI translation interfaces which enable users to locate commands in one application using the interface language of another application. Our end-user tool, ShowMeHow, demonstrates two interaction techniques to accomplish translations: 1) direct manipulation of interface facades and 2) text search for commands using the vocabulary of another application. We discuss tools needed to construct the translation maps that enable these techniques. An initial study (n=12) shows that users can locate unfamiliar commands twice as fast with interface facades. A second study showed that users can work through tutorials written for one application in another application.
Supplemental Material
- GIMPshop. http://www.gimpshop.com/. Retrieved 4/2011.Google Scholar
- Ron Baecker. Showing instead of telling. In Proceedings of the 20th annual international conference on Computer documentation, SIGDOC '02, pages 10--16, New York, NY, USA, 2002. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lawrence Bergman, Vittorio Castelli, Tessa Lau, and Daniel Oblinger. Docwizards: a system for authoring follow-me documentation wizards. In Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, UIST '05, pages 191--200, New York, NY, USA, 2005. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- John M. Carroll. The Nurnberg funnel: designing minimalist instruction for practical computer skill. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 1990. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sudarshan S. Chawathe, Anand Rajaraman, Hector Garcia-Molina, and Jennifer Widom. Change detection in hierarchically structured information. SIGMOD Record, 25:493--504, June 1996. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sid Davis and Susan Wiedenbeck. The mediating effects of intrinsic motivation, ease of use and usefulness perceptions on performance in first-time and subsequent computer users. Interacting with Computers, 13(5):549 -- 580, 2001.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Morgan Dixon and James Fogarty. Prefab: implementing advanced behaviors using pixel-based reverse engineering of interface structure. In Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '10, pages 1525--1534, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Adam Fourney, Richard Mann, and Michael Terry. Queryfeature graphs:bridging user vocabulary and system functionality. In Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, UIST '11, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Krzysztof Z. Gajos, Daniel S. Weld, and Jacob O. Wobbrock. Automatically generating personalized user interfaces with supple. Artificial Intelligence, 174(12--13):910--950, 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Floraine Grabler, Maneesh Agrawala, Wilmot Li, Mira Dontcheva, and Takeo Igarashi. Generating photo manipulation tutorials by demonstration. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 28:66:1--66:9, July 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tovi Grossman, George Fitzmaurice, and Ramtin Attar. A survey of software learnability: metrics, methodologies and guidelines. In Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '09, pages 649--658, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka, and George Fitzmaurice. Chronicle: capture, exploration, and playback of document workflow histories. In Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, UIST '10, pages 143--152, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Susan M. Harrison. A comparison of still, animated, or nonillustrated on-line help with written or spoken instructions in a graphical user interface. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '95, pages 82--89, New York, NY, USA, 1995. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Björn Hartmann, Leslie Wu, Kevin Collins, and Scott R. Klemmer. Programming by a sample: rapidly creating web applications with d.mix. In Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, UIST '07, pages 241--250, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Edwin L. Hutchins, James D. Hollan, and Donald A. Norman. Direct manipulation interfaces. Human-Computer Interaction, 1:311--338, 1985. Google ScholarDigital Library
- David F. Huynh, Robert C. Miller, and David R. Karger. Potluck: semi-ontology alignment for casual users. In Proceedings of the 6th international The semantic web and 2nd Asian conference on Asian semantic web conference, ISWC'07/ASWC'07, pages 903--910, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007. Springer-Verlag. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Caitlin Kelleher and Randy Pausch. Stencils-based tutorials: design and evaluation. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '05, pages 541--550, New York, NY, USA, 2005. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Miryung Kim and David Notkin. Program element matching for multi-version program analyses. In Proceedings of the 2006 international workshop on Mining software repositories, MSR '06, pages 58--64, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kevin Knabe. Apple guide: a case study in user-aided design of online help. In Conference companion on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '95, pages 286--287, New York, NY, USA, 1995. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ranjitha Kumar, Jerry O. Talton, Salman Ahmad, and Scott R. Klemmer. Bricolage: Example-based retargeting for web design. In Proceedings of the 29th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '11, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- David Kurlander and Steven Feiner. A history-based macro by example system. In Proceedings of the 5th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, UIST '92, pages 99--106, New York, NY, USA, 1992. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tessa Lau, Clemens Drews, and Jeffrey Nichols. Interpreting written how-to instructions. In Proceedings of the 21st international jont conference on Artifical intelligence, pages 1433--1438, San Francisco, CA, USA, 2009. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Toshio Nakamura and Takeo Igarashi. An application-independent system for visualizing user operation history. In Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, UIST '08, pages 23--32, New York, NY, USA, 2008. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jeffrey Nichols, Brad A. Myers, and Brandon Rothrock. Uniform: automatically generating consistent remote control user interfaces. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, CHI '06, pages 611--620, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fabio Paterno. Model-Based Design and Evaluation of Interactive Applications. Springer-Verlag, London, UK, 1st edition, 1999. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Angel R. Puerta. A model-based interface development environment. IEEE Software, 14:40--47, July 1997. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Erhard Rahm and Philip A. Bernstein. A survey of approaches to automatic schema matching. The VLDB Journal, 10:334--350, December 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Christian Spannagel, Raimund Girwidz, Herbert Löthe, Andreas Zendler, and Ulrik Schroeder. Animated demonstrations and training wheels interfaces in a complex learning environment. Interacting with Computers, 20:97--111, January 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Christof C. van Nimwegen, Daniel D. Burgos, Herre H. van Oostendorp, and Hermina H. J. M. Schijf. The paradox of the assisted user: guidance can be counterproductive. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, CHI '06, pages 917--926, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Robert Wilensky, Yigal Arens, and David Chin. Talking to unix in english: an overview of uc. Communications of the ACM, 27:574--593, June 1984. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- ShowMeHow: translating user interface instructions between applications
Recommendations
Sketch-sketch revolution: an engaging tutorial system for guided sketching and application learning
UIST '11: Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technologyWe describe Sketch-Sketch Revolution, a new tutorial system that allows any user to experience the success of drawing content previously created by an expert artist. Sketch-Sketch Revolution not only guides users through the application user interface, ...
MixT: automatic generation of step-by-step mixed media tutorials
CHI EA '12: CHI '12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsAs software interfaces become more complicated, users rely on tutorials to learn, creating an increasing demand for effective tutorials. Existing tutorials, however, are limited in their presentation: Static step-by-step tutorials are easy to scan but ...
MixT: automatic generation of step-by-step mixed media tutorials
UIST '12: Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technologyUsers of complex software applications often learn concepts and skills through step-by-step tutorials. Today, these tutorials are published in two dominant forms: static tutorials composed of images and text that are easy to scan, but cannot effectively ...
Comments