{"id":1284,"date":"2020-04-28T15:30:02","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T19:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2020-04-28T15:30:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T19:30:04","slug":"4-29-20-lee-lisle-discoveryspace-suggesting-actions-in-complex-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/2020\/04\/28\/4-29-20-lee-lisle-discoveryspace-suggesting-actions-in-complex-software\/","title":{"rendered":"4\/29\/20 \u2013 Lee Lisle \u2013 DiscoverySpace: Suggesting Actions in Complex Software"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

               Fraser\net al.\u2019s paper discusses how difficult some software programs are, especially\nfor novices, and a possible solution to help ameliorate the steep learning\ncurves they often possess. Their solution is the DiscoverySpace interface \u2013 a tool\nfor the creation of macros to help novice users learn new capabilities of the\nsoftware they want to use. They further test this with a prototype that is used\nto help participants learn how to use the popular image editing program\nPhotoshop. After finding 115 different macros from various sources, they\ndesigned their workflow and interface and ran a study to evaluate it. They\nfound, in a study with 28 participants, that found that participants were\nsignificantly less likely to be discouraged or say they couldn\u2019t figure\nsomething out with the DiscoverySpace tool installed with Photoshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personal Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

               This\npaper provides a fantastic workflow for easing novice users into using new and\ndifficult programs. I liked it because it provides a slightly more customized\nexperience than the youtube video walkthroughs and online tutorials that I\u2019m\naccustomed to using. I would even like to actually use this interface for\nPhotoshop, as its one program I attempted to break into a few times early on in\nmy college career, always failing as there were too many features too obliquely\ndescribed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

               I was\nsurprised that the authors removed the suggestions that contained pauses and\ndialogue. I would have expected those situations to be better able to present\nthe user with the appropriate background for the effects they wanted to do.\nHowever, when they explained their reasoning \u2013 that the explanations often were\nnot enough and confused the users \u2013 it made a lot more sense to remove those\naltogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

               I\u2019m not\nsure how I feel about their comment that later on they are supporting \u201cpaid\u201d\nactions, where the macros do something that can be considered of a higher\nquality and thereby require some form of compensation for the macro creator. I\ndon\u2019t think an academic paper is the place for that sort of suggestion, as it\ndoesn\u2019t really add to the software or approach the paper presents. All tools\nthat academic papers present could be used in commercial software, so why would\nthat be of particular note in this paper?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

               Lastly,\nand this is more of a quibble, I was more off put than I thought I would be by\nthe text-aligned images as seen in figures 3 and 4. The alignment is more\ndifficult to read than it would be in a casual magazine-type environment, and\nshould be reserved for that sort of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Do you think the 115 presented actions are\nenough of a testbed for the prototype tool? I.E., should they have more to\npresent a better amalgamation of possible uses? How would they generate more?<\/li>
  2. Beyond using image analysis to present some\ninitial ideas to the users, what other ways might you improve their approach to\nmake it more automated, or do you think there\u2019s enough or too much automation\nalready?<\/li>
  3. What other programs could use this approach, and\nhow might they integrate it into their platforms?<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Summary                Fraser et al.\u2019s paper discusses how difficult some software programs are, especially for novices, and a possible solution to help ameliorate the steep learning curves they often possess. Their solution is the DiscoverySpace interface \u2013 a tool for the creation of macros to help novice users learn new capabilities of the software they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[117,119],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class15","tag-discoveryspace"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1285,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions\/1285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}