Summary:
“DiscoverySpace: Suggesting Actions in Complex Software” by Fraser et. al. talks about complex software and ways novice users can navigate these complex systems. “DiscoverySpace is a prototype extension panel for Adobe Photoshop that suggests task-level action macros to apply to photographs based on visual features.” The authors find out that the actions suggested by DiscoverSpace help novices maintain confidence, accomplish tasks, and discover new features. The work highlights how user generated content can be leveraged by interface designers to help new and inexperienced navigate a complex system. There are several problems that a beginner might face when trying to access new complex systems: (i) the novice user might not be familiar with the technical jargon used by the software, (ii) the online tutorials might be difficult to follow and assume a certain amount of background knowledge, (iii) there can be several ways to accomplish the same task and the user might get overwhelmed and confused when getting to know about them. The paper presents DiscoverySpace which is a prototype action suggestion software to help beginners get started without feeling overwhelmed.
Reflections:
This is an interesting paper as it talks about the methodology that can be adopted by software designers to build a system that aids novice users, instead of overwhelming them. This reminds me of the popular ‘cold start’ problem in computational modeling. The term essentially refers to the problem when computers do not have enough information to model the desired human behavior. This is due to the lack of initial user interactions. The authors try to mitigate this problem in DiscoverySpace by conducting a survey to help identify and narrow down the kind of help novices need. It was an interesting find that participants who used the web to look for help achieved their results less often. I would have expected it to be the other way round. The authors suggest that the participants failed to find the best way to accomplish the task and Google does not always help find the best results. One of the limitations of the study was that the task was open-ended. If the task were more directed, the results would have led to better findings. Also, self-reporting expertise on a task might not be the most reliable way to assess the user as a novice or an expert. Another thing to note here is that all the participants had some kind of domain knowledge, either through the basic principles of photography or through simpler photo-editing software. It would be interesting to see how the results pan out for users from a different field. I was also wondering if the design goals presented by the authors are too generic. This can be a good thing as it allows other systems to take these goals into consideration but it might also prove harmful as it might limit the capability of DiscoverySpace by not taking into account the specific design goals that this particular system might benefit from.
Questions:
1. Did you agree with the methodology of the paper?
2. Which design goal do you think would apply to you?
3. Can you think of any other software that is complex enough to require design interventions?
5. How are you incorporating creativity into your project?
I agree with the methodology in the paper and believe that such features of macro actions can benefit a lot of frameworks. I think there are already some places it is being applied. Like example queries when you start using a speech assistant.
I feel that this approach can actually be extended beyond just complex software, but also for simple action sequences for novice users (or non tech-savvy folks) on simple applications or websites. Somewhat, an extension of this — https://wordpress.cs.vt.edu/echolab/2018/10/19/interactive-tutorial/