Among the other talks I attended at CHI 2011 was Justin Matejka et al.’s “Ambient Help” (). The Ambient Help system is designed for complex desktop applications like AutoCAD or Photoshop, which tend to come with a steep learning curve, and which tend to require a continued learning process even from more experienced users that [...]
can you identify what’s happening when users are searching? can you tell who are novices and who are experts? can you tell when a searcher is frustrated? what are signals for search success? – query formulation – evaluation speed – query formulation process (systematic) use of operators might mean experts. not considering experts/novices, or successes, [...]
In 1981, Elaine Rich predicted in a paper called “Users are individuals” [1] that as digital information tools became increasingly capable, they would empower people to assume more tasks and responsibilities. This tendency would, in turn, drive a demand for better tools — tools that let people complete their tasks more easily, efficiently and accurately, [...]