Summary
Fraser et al.’s paper “DiscoverySpace: Suggesting Actions in Complex Software” explores how action suggestions can be incorporated into a complex system that can help beginners and inexperienced users navigate and gain confidence while interacting with the system. This research is motivated by the observation that there are several problems that novice users might face several problems when trying to use complex software: (1) new users may be unfamiliar with the vocabulary used in the application, making it difficult to explore the desired features; (2) online tutorials might be difficult to suit their situation and goals; (3) several shortcuts in the software to accomplish the same task are available but inexperienced users might get overwhelmed by the multiple approaches and have no idea how to locate the most efficient ones; (4) users only get exposure to a small number of software features which may limit their cognition of its potential power. To address the above issues, the researchers develop DiscoverySpace which is a prototype action suggestion software extension for Adobe Photoshop to help beginners get started without feeling overwhelmed.
Reflection
I think this paper conducted a very interesting study on how the proposed action recommendations can help novice users build confidence, accomplish tasks, and discover features. Probably many of us have similar experiences that when we are trying to get started with a complex software used by professionals in different domains, the learning curve is so deep that we feel frustrated and discouraged at the beginning. If there is no necessity to use the software or light-weighted alternatives available, we may give up using it. The proposed extension does a good job presenting some basic features of the complex software and develops “one-click” operations for easy tasks, which can make new users gain some sense of achievement while interacting with the system and may want to continue exploring other features.
As presented in the analysis and experimental results, the largest improvement of the proposed Adobe Photoshop extension is among the users who just get started using the software. The evaluation is mostly based on their self-reported confidence. However, another important aspect is ignored in the process – how much did the users learn in the process. That relates to what goal we want to achieve by using professional software. If the users just expect to leverage the power of Photoshop to do really simple tasks, there are a bunch of mobile applications available with only a few easy clicks. If the objective is just to beautify a selfie, the Instagram application has built-in operations and is very easy to use. As we know, Photoshop is used by professionals for image editing. If the users would like to learn how to use the software and build up their skills over time, the current version of the proposed extension does not seem to be helpful. The proposed approach is to encapsulate a sequence of operations into a single click. There is no denying the fact that it is very easy to use, but the light-weighted operations may not contribute to long-term learning. I am a Photoshop user and use it frequently as needed. The current version of the proposed extension may not be very useful to me, but I feel there is a lot of potentials to improve to make it more powerful. Firstly, it would be very useful to have a dialogue box to present the back-end steps conducted within a one-click function. Knowing the basic sequence to achieve a simple task can help the users build their knowledge and know what to do or at least what to search when they need to achieve a similar task. Secondly, it would be helpful to have some interactive modules that enable users to adjust a number of parameters, such as brightness, contrast, and so forth. These are fundamentals for users who want to enhance their skill levels and get experienced with Photoshop.
Discussion
I think the following questions are worthy of further discussion.
- In what user scenarios you think the proposed software extension would be most useful?
- Do you think it is helpful to incorporate a sequence of operations in one click or there is a need to present the operations step by step to users?
- Do you think that this approach with newly released extensions can assist experts in complex professional software?
- Can you think about some examples of other applications in the same or different domains that could benefit from the proposed approach?
Hi Fanglan, I really like your comment! Especially the second paragraph, that exactly what I want to express. I feel like there is a lot of mobile application able to achieve one-click retouching, then what is the point of using Photoshop to do this. Therefore, regarding your first question, I think if there is a day that I have to learn how to use Photoshop, I might start with this extension panel so that I will not too annoyed to continue using it. Regarding the second question, I think it very necessary to show the step by step operations to users. It would be much better if the user could edit each step or make any changes. Otherwise, the system would just like most of the “one-click” filter mobile applications.
Hi Fanglan, I really interesting points. I think this could be used for any number of scenarios to use complex software. For example, programming IDEs, creative software (Adobe suite of software), etc. I wonder how these two would differ from each other. On the one had, IDEs are more rule-based while creative software has many ways to accomplish one thing.