Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference on - DIS '12, 2012
While workers in an urban environment typically enjoy full speed, always available, broadband acc... more While workers in an urban environment typically enjoy full speed, always available, broadband access, those in rural and remote environments do not necessarily have access to the same level of service. In this paper we describe insights from a qualitative study examining the benefits and continued challenges of using networked technologies for work purposes in rural and remote communities. Our
Examining large-scale, long-term application use is critical to understanding the degree to which... more Examining large-scale, long-term application use is critical to understanding the degree to which an application meets the needs of its user community. However, there has been limited published analysis of this type of data, none of which pertains to applications that support creating and modifying content using direct manipulation. In this paper, we present an analysis of 2 years of usage data from an in- strumented version of the GNU Image Manipulation Pro- gram, including data from over 200 users. In the course of our analysis, we contribute to the body of knowledge on large-scale application use in three ways. First, we show that previous findings concerning the sparseness of com- mand use and idiosyncrasy of users' command vocabularies extend to a new domain and interaction style. Second, we demonstrate that direct manipulation applications require new analysis methods to determine command popularity. Finally, we describe the novel application of a clustering technique to c...
In this paper we identify roles and uses of web-based tutorials through an examination of tutoria... more In this paper we identify roles and uses of web-based tutorials through an examination of tutorials’ comments sections. Through this analytical lens, we find that web tutorials serve a variety of needs, providing: in-task help for users with an immediate, specific goal to accomplish; a means for users to proactively expand their repertoire of skills; and an opportunity for novices to shadow and experience an expert’s work practices. We also find a number of emergent practices in tutorial comments. Users post “help-me” stack traces, a type of comment useful for debugging tutorial content; use comments sections as opportunistic support forums; and turn to comments sections for social and technical validation of their personal skill sets. Collectively, these findings enrich existing perspectives on web-based tutorials and argue for new mechanisms to support these various use cases.
Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference on - DIS '12, 2012
While workers in an urban environment typically enjoy full speed, always available, broadband acc... more While workers in an urban environment typically enjoy full speed, always available, broadband access, those in rural and remote environments do not necessarily have access to the same level of service. In this paper we describe insights from a qualitative study examining the benefits and continued challenges of using networked technologies for work purposes in rural and remote communities. Our
Examining large-scale, long-term application use is critical to understanding the degree to which... more Examining large-scale, long-term application use is critical to understanding the degree to which an application meets the needs of its user community. However, there has been limited published analysis of this type of data, none of which pertains to applications that support creating and modifying content using direct manipulation. In this paper, we present an analysis of 2 years of usage data from an in- strumented version of the GNU Image Manipulation Pro- gram, including data from over 200 users. In the course of our analysis, we contribute to the body of knowledge on large-scale application use in three ways. First, we show that previous findings concerning the sparseness of com- mand use and idiosyncrasy of users' command vocabularies extend to a new domain and interaction style. Second, we demonstrate that direct manipulation applications require new analysis methods to determine command popularity. Finally, we describe the novel application of a clustering technique to c...
In this paper we identify roles and uses of web-based tutorials through an examination of tutoria... more In this paper we identify roles and uses of web-based tutorials through an examination of tutorials’ comments sections. Through this analytical lens, we find that web tutorials serve a variety of needs, providing: in-task help for users with an immediate, specific goal to accomplish; a means for users to proactively expand their repertoire of skills; and an opportunity for novices to shadow and experience an expert’s work practices. We also find a number of emergent practices in tutorial comments. Users post “help-me” stack traces, a type of comment useful for debugging tutorial content; use comments sections as opportunistic support forums; and turn to comments sections for social and technical validation of their personal skill sets. Collectively, these findings enrich existing perspectives on web-based tutorials and argue for new mechanisms to support these various use cases.
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