Proactive Versus Multimodal Online Help: An Empirical Study

Two groups of 8 participants experimented two enhancements of standard online help for the general public during one hour: adaptive proactive (AP) assistance and multimodal user support. Proactive help, that is, anticipation of the user’s information needs raised very positive judgments, while dynamic adaptation to the user’s current knowledge and skills went almost unnoticed. Speech and graphics (SG) messages were also well accepted, based on the observation that one can go on interacting with the software application while listening to instructions. However, several participants observed that the transience and linearity of speech limited the usability of this modality. Analysis of interaction logs and post-tests shows that procedural and semantic knowledge acquisition was higher with SG help than with AP assistance. Contrastingly, AP help was consulted more often than SG user support. Results also suggest that proactive online help may reduce the effectiveness of autonomous “l...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: AH
• Authors: Jérôme Simonin, Noëlle Carbonell
• Keywords: AH 2008, Internet Technology, Online Help, Proactive, User Support