The Nurnberg funnel: designing minimalist instruction for practical computer skill
The Nurnberg funnel: designing minimalist instruction for practical computer skill
Communications of the ACM - Special issue on computer graphics: state of the arts
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Contextual design: defining customer-centered systems
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CUU '00 Proceedings on the 2000 conference on Universal Usability
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SIGDOC '06 Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication
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SIGDOC '07 Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication
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Proceedings of the 26th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication
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UAHCI '09 Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Addressing Diversity. Part I: Held as Part of HCI International 2009
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Proceedings of the 27th ACM international conference on Design of communication
The macro-structure of use of help
Proceedings of the 27th ACM international conference on Design of communication
When 'one fits all' does not fit: study of visualization types for mobile help systems
Proceedings of the 23rd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Celebrating People and Technology
Uniform user interface design for PC and TV convergence environment in GridMedia+ IPTV platform
CCNC'10 Proceedings of the 7th IEEE conference on Consumer communications and networking conference
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An empirical study on evolution of API documentation
FASE'11/ETAPS'11 Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Fundamental approaches to software engineering: part of the joint European conferences on theory and practice of software
Inferring specifications for resources from natural language API documentation
Automated Software Engineering
Usage of and satisfaction with online help vs. search engines for aid in software use
Proceedings of the 29th ACM international conference on Design of communication
Inferring method specifications from natural language API descriptions
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How Older Adults Learn to Use Mobile Devices: Survey and Field Investigations
ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)
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Few users of computer applications seek help from the documentation. This paper reports the results of an empirical study of why this is so and examines how, in real work, users solve their usability problems. Based on in-depth interviews with 25 subjects representing a varied cross-section of users, we find that users do avoid using both paper and online help systems. Few users have paper manuals for the most heavily used applications, but none complained about their lack. Online help is more likely to be consulted than paper manuals, but users are equally likely to report that they solve their problem by asking a colleague or experimenting on their own. Users cite difficulties in navigating the help systems, particularly difficulties in finding useful search terms, and disappointment in the level of explanation found.