user support system in HCI

Human computer interaction.

Presenter’sUsman Mukhtar 125/046 Shahbaz Khan 141/030

Contents

• User Support System • Requirements Of User support System• Approaches To User Support System• Adoptive Health System• Design For User Support System

Introduction• Users require different types of support at

different times.• Basic requirements

– available but unobtrusive– accurate and robust– consistent and flexible

• Design of user support must take account of:– presentation issues– implementation issues

Types of support• Quick reference• Task specific help• Full explanation• Tutorial

Types of support• Quick reference

– reminder of details; assumes familiarity– eg command syntax, options, etc.

Usage: telnet [-8] [-#] [L] [-a] [-d] [-e char] [-l user] [-n tracefile] [-r] [host-name [port]]

Task specific help addresses problems with

particular tasks focused on what is currently

being done

Types of Support• Full explanation

– for more experienced and inquisitive users– likely to include information not needed now– Unix man command

• Tutorial– aimed at new users

Types of support• Fo ur type s are co mpleme ntary• Together they support range of points in

user’s experience with system

• Each type may be on-line and off-line (documentation)– should be consistent in content– presentation medium may have impact on design– general principles for both

Requirements• Availability• Accuracy and Completeness• Consistency• Robustness• Flexibility• Unobtrusiveness

Requirements• Availability

– accessible any time during application interaction• Accuracy and completeness

– consider incremental update/feature-adding of releases

• Consistency– different parts of help system and documentation

consistent in content, terminology and presentation

Requirements• Robustness

– system itself should be robust– even more important with support, because users are

in trouble when using it• Flexibility

– meets needs of user allows user to get information in an appropriate form

– context sensitive or adaptive help systems• Unobtrusiveness

– shouldn’ t block work in application

Approaches to User Support• Command Assistance• Command Prompts• Context-Sensitive help• On-line tutorials• On-line documentation• Wizards• Assistants

Approaches to user support• Command assistance

– good for reference on command, eg man or help– user must know what to look for

• Command prompts– provide information when error occurs– good for syntactic errors– won’ t tell you if you need a different command

• Context sensitive help– depends on what user is doing– eg. completing a dialog, tool tip

Approaches to User Support• On-line tutorials

– introduces user to components of system– structure progress, maybe at user’s own speed– includes examples, test environment to simulate

interface– useful, but inflexible

• On-line documentation– printed material in electronic form – eg readme files– continually available but can be difficult to browse– Hypertext can support browsing

Approaches to User Support• Wizards

– task specific tool that leads user through task step-by-step

– user answers ‘questions’ along the way– constraining - may not offer options– should have progress indicator and allow back up

Approaches to User Support• Assistants

– monitor user behavior and offer suggestions

– unobtrusive and under user control

– ‘Clippy’ not unobtrusive, suggestions inappropriate

– MS XP smart tag s appear near object of interest

Adaptive Help Systems• Use knowledge of the user, task, domain and

instruction to provide help adapted to user’s needs.

• Problems:– Knowledge requirements considerable

• must collect data on by monitoring interaction– Issue of control - how active?– What should be adapted?– What is scope of adaptation? :

User modeling• User modeling

– single, generic user (non-intelligent)– user-configured model (adaptable)– system-configured model (adaptive)

• Static help systems can’ t address all user differences.

• Adaptive help systems model users, refining the model by monitoring a user’s activities, and present help tailored to the particular user.

Approaches to User modeling• Quantification

– user moves between levels of expertise based on quantitative measure of what he knows

Move from level 1 to level 2 ifsystem has been used more than twicecommands x and y used effectivelyhelp has not been accessed in this sessionsystem has been used in last 5 days

Approaches to User modeling• Stereotypes

– user is classified into a particular category

• Overlay– an idealized model of expert use is constructed – actual use compared to it– can determine how far user is from optimal use– can suggest optimal use strategies

Domain and Task Modeling• Usually involves analysis of command

sequences– Assistants and agents

• Covers– common errors and tasks– command sequences for current task

• Problems– interleaved tasks– user intention

Designing User Support

• User support is not an ‘add on’ - it should be designed integrally with system.

• Should concentrate on content and context of help rather than technological issues

• There are presentation issues and implementation issues

Presentation issues • How is help requested?

– Command– button– function (on/off)– separate application

• How is help displayed?– New window– whole screen or split screen– pop-up box– hint icons

Designing User Support : Presentation issues • Effective presentation requires

– clear, familiar, consistent language– instructional rather than descriptive language– avoid of blocks of text– summary and example

Designing User Support Systems : Implementation Issues

• Is help– OS command– meta command– application

• What resources are available– screen space– memory capacity– speed

Designing User Support Systems: Implementation Issues• Structure of help data

– single file– file hierarchy– database

• Consider– flexibility and extensibility– hard copy– browsing

Summary• Users require different support at different times• User support should be:

– available but unobtrusive– accurate and robust– consistent and flexible

• User support comes in a number of styles:– command-based, context sensitive help– tutorial, online doc, wizards and assistants– adaptive help

• Design of user support must take account of:– presentation and implementation issues

THANK YOUFor Your AttentionZ

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