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Stencils-based tutorials: design and evaluation

Published: 02 April 2005 Publication History

Abstract

Users of traditional tutorials and help systems often have difficulty finding the components described or pictured in the procedural instructions. Users also unintentionally miss steps, and perform actions that the documentation's authors did not intend, moving the application into an unknown state. We introduce Stencils, an interaction technique for presenting tutorials that uses translucent colored stencils containing holes that direct the user's attention to the correct interface component and prevent the user from interacting with other components. Sticky notes on the stencil's surface provide necessary tutorial material in the context of the application. In a user study comparing a Stencils-based and paper-based version of the same tutorial in Alice, a complex software application designed to teach introductory computer programming, we found that users of a Stencils-based tutorial were able complete the tutorial 26% faster, with fewer errors, and less reliance on human assistance. Users of the Stencils-based and paper-based tutorials attained statistically similar levels of learning.

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI '05: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
April 2005
928 pages
ISBN:1581139985
DOI:10.1145/1054972
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 02 April 2005

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Author Tags

  1. interaction technique
  2. transparent overlay
  3. tutorials
  4. user interface design

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  • (2024)Navigating the Job-Seeking Journey: Challenges and Opportunities for Digital Employment Support in KashmirProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373758:CSCW1(1-28)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
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