The Learning project aims to investigate advanced techniques for assisting users in learning complicated applications. We are interested in a range of investigations from the scientific study of the human learning process to prototyping novel interaction techniques for improving the general learning mechanisms that can be applied to all applications.
One of our main observations is that the fundamental application provided learning mechanism, the "help system", has not changed much in the last 10 years or so. However, our computing environment has undergone significant changes such as:
The Learning project will focus on a variety of research questions such as:
Amazon recommends books to its users. Netflix recommends movies. With CommunityCommands, Autodesk will recommend command functionality to its users. CommunityCommands collects usage data from thousands of Autodesk users, through the Customer Involvement Program (CIP), and then generates personalized command recommendations using newly developed algorithms. CommunityCommands will expose users to the critical commands which they should be using, but are not aware of, accelerating the learning process.
One of the main learnability challenges associated with complex software applications is learning to use the tools which the application provides. Advancements in the technologies that we use provide new opportunities to provide the necessary assistance. In particular, video assistance has become widespread. However, such assistance is generally in the form of long video tutorials, accessed externally from the software application. With the ToolClips project, we augment traditional tooltips with videos, giving users rapid, contextual, and within-application access video clips, to help understand how to use the associated tools. Our research on ToolClips has been published and is also being transferred into Autodesk products.
With the Visualization project we take large datasets and create graphics to present the information in way which allows us to examine the data and look for interesting trends. Much of the data comes from the Autodesk Customer Involvement Program (CIP) which collects anonymous usage data from Autodesk products. By visualizing this data we hope to detect patterns in product usage which we can use to inform product direction and interface design.
The Chronicle Research Project is exploring a new type of system that will allow users to easily share and learn from software workflows. The Chronicle system records the timing and details of workflow information – the mouse clicks and typing, the tool and settings being used, along with a continuous screen capture. We associate all of this captured information with the application’s data file – so every document can also have an automatically generated “making of” video.
Wei Li, Yuanlin Zhang & George Fitzmaurice. (2013 - In Press).
TutorialPlan: Automated Tutorial Generation from CAD Drawings
IJCAI 2013 Conference Proceedings:
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
8 pages.
Nikola Banovic, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2013).
The Effect of Time-based Cost of Error in Target-directed Pointing Tasks
CHI 2013 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
pp. 1373-1382.
Nicholas Kong, Tovi Grossman, Björn Hartmann, George Fitzmaurice & Maneesh Agrawala. (2012).
Delta: A Tool for Representing and Comparing Workflows
CHI 2012 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
10 pages.
Nikola Banovic, Fanny Chevalier, George Fitzmaurice & Tovi Grossman. (2012).
Triggering Triggers and Burying Barriers to Customizing Software
CHI 2012 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
10 pages.
Justin Matejka, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2012).
Citeology: Visualizing Paper Genealogy
Extended Abstracts (alt.chi): Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
January 2012.
9 pages.
Justin Matejka, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
IP-QAT: In-Product Questions, Answers & Tips
UIST 2011 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology.
pp. 175-184.
Michael Ekstrand, Wei Li, Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
Searching for Software Learning Resources using Application Context
UIST 2011 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology.
pp. 195-204.
Jennifer Fernquist, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
Sketch-Sketch Revolution: An Engaging Tutorial System for Guided Sketching and Application Learning
UIST 2011 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology.
pp. 373-382.
Wei Li, Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
TwitApp: In-product Micro-Blogging for Design Sharing
UIST 2011 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology.
pp. 185-194.
Wei Li, Justin Matejka, Tovi Grossman, Joe Konstan & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
Design and Evaluation of a Command Recommendation System for Software Applications.
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.
June 2011, Volume 18, Issue 2, Article 6.
38 pages.
Michael Rooke, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
AppMap: Exploring User Interface Visualizations
GI 2011 Conference Proceedings:
Graphics Interface Conference.
8 pages.
Justin Matejka, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
Ambient Help
CHI 2011 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
pp. 2751-2760.
Parmit Chilana, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
Modern Software Product Support Processes and the Usage of Multimedia Formats
CHI 2011 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
pp. 3093-3102.
Parmit Chilana, Andrew Ko, Jacob Wobbrock, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2011).
Post-Deployment Usability: A Survey of Current Practices
CHI 2011 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
pp. 2243-2246.
Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka & George Fitzmaurice. (2010).
Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories
UIST 2010 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology.
pp. 143 - 152.
Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2010).
ToolClips: An investigation of contextual video assistance for functionality understanding
CHI 2010 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
pp. 1515-1524.
Best paper award nominee
Justin Matejka, Wei Li, Tovi Grossman & George Fitzmaurice. (2009).
CommunityCommands: Command Recommendations for Software Applications
UIST 2009 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology.
pp. 193-202.
Tovi Grossman, George Fitzmaurice & Ramtin Attar. (2009).
A Survey of Software Learnability: Metrics, Methodologies and Guidelines
CHI 2009 Conference Proceedings:
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
pp. 649-658.
Best paper award nominee
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