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.
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