applying cognitive science to user assistance
DESCRIPTION
My presentation from the UA Europe 2013 conference, a condensation of ideas applying cognitive science to user assistance. For a more complete exploration of this subject, see the three-part series, A Cognitive Design for User Experience.TRANSCRIPT
RAY GALLON C U L T U R E C O M
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Applying Cognitive Science to User Assistance
Member, Board of Directors
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
About Me - Ray Gallon The Humanist Nerd!
Owner/Consultant, Culturecom – specialist in usability, content strategy, and user assistance for software !
Research collaborator and principal, The Transformation Society, a new research and training institute in Barcelona, Spain!
■ 20 years in technical communication with major companies such as G.E. Healthcare, Alcatel, IBM, etc.
■ Member, board of directors, Society for Technical Communication (STC)
■ Past president, STC France ■ Award-‐winning radio producer and journalist – CBC, NPR, France Culture,
etc. and former programme manager, WNYC-‐FM, New York Public Radio!
RAY GALLON C U L T U R E C O M
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different " " "! Peter Drucker!
Our job is to help people use our products well and wisely, which means they learn to adapt, and cope with changes in technology and society.
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
OECD: The Future Requires Complex Thinking
Expert Thinking
Complex Communication
Non-routine Manual Tasks
Routine Cognitive Tasks
Routine manual tasks
• Communication • Knowledge
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Before Proceeding, Decide
Modern software’s complexity, features, & power can leave users perplexed – often just when they
have some immediate, contingent need:
“I need to get this done, and NOW!.”
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Before Proceeding, Decide
• User assistance that is limited to procedures cannot help people with contingent needs.
• They need to decide which, if any, procedures they need to use.
• Long conceptual topics might provide insight.
• But people with contingent needs are not going to wade through long texts.
• We can help users get real work done more quickly with a bit of decision support.
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Designing User Assistance - Experience is More Important than Taxonomy
" Problem #1: with traditional “static” documentation, the product gives meaning to the docs.
" Users’ experience with the product takes them from the abstract realm of reading about the product...
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Designing User Assistance - Experience is More Important than Taxonomy
" Problem #1: with traditional “static” documentation, the product gives meaning to the docs.
" Users’ experience with the product takes them from the abstract realm of reading about the product...
" to the reality of performance.
" For software, we can go straight to performance-‐based meaning if we embed the user assistance in the product itself.
" Minimalism + Structured Authoring make this doable.
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Let’s Look at Minimalism
" Two common ideas about minimalism:
" Don’t waste user’s time with unnecessary
detail, especially concepts
" Save money in production and
localization with reduced content
" STEP 1!" STEP 2!" STEP 3!
DON’T DO THAT!
NOTE:!
WARNING!!
" Is memorizing a procedure by rote
necessary for competency? " If co
ncepts are im
portant,
how do we include the
m
without “wasting
users’
time?”
" How do I know if I need to do this?
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Not Just Minimal – Minimal and Meaningful
§ Minimal and meaningful: one task helps
us understand many related tasks. § Minimal and meaningful: one quick look
tells us we don’t need to bother with this
(or that we do).
" People best learn about produ
ct
use by doing something and making
connections in the process.
" Learn by do
ing – put the
concepts where th
ey will be
useful and re
membered.
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Everything We Know…
" Get straight to procedures " Don’t waste user’s time with unnecessary detail, especially concepts
" Procedural information must be separated from conceptual information.
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Double Embeddedness
Embed simple concepts directly into the User Assistance
Cognitive Science (and John Carroll)backs this up
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Cognitive Bases: Gestalt Psychology
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology
• Gestalt psychology tries to understand the laws of our ability to acquire and maintain stable percepts in a noisy world.
• The brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-‐organizing tendencies.
• The human eye sees objects in their entirety before perceiving their individual parts, suggesting the whole is “other” than the sum of its parts.
We fill in blank spaces to complete images. John Carroll favours this kind of inferential learning in minimalism.
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Cognitive Bases: Constructivism
• Allows the learner to experience an environment first-‐hand, thereby giving the student reliable, trust-‐worthy knowledge.
• The learner is required to act upon the environment to both acquire and test new knowledge.
• Learners are self-‐directed, creative, and innovative.
• Instructors are facilitators, not teachers.
• The context in which the learning occurs is central to the learning itself
• Learning is an active, social process.
• Learners should collaborate to arrive at shared understanding.
• This social approach has developed into…
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory)
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
• Knowledge is activated in the world as much as in the head of an individual. • It exists within systems which are accessed through people participating in activities.
Cognitive Bases: Connectivism
• Learning is the process of creating connections and elaborating a network. In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node such as an organisation, information, data, feelings and images.
• Learning may reside in non-‐human appliances.
• Learning is more critical than knowing.
• Maintaining and nurturing connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Perceiving connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-‐to-‐date knowledge) is the intent of learning activities.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
• Knowledge is activated in the world as much as in the head of an individual. • It exists within systems which are accessed through people participating in activities.
Cognitive Bases: Connectivism
• Learning is the process of creating connections and elaborating a network. In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node such as an organisation, information, data, feelings and images.
• Learning may reside in non-‐human appliances.
• Learning is more critical than knowing.
• Maintaining and nurturing connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Perceiving connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-‐to-‐date knowledge) is the intent of learning activities.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism
The Underpinning for
KANBAN INFORMATION:
• +Know where • Know how • Know what • +Know when
Implied:!• +Know how to be • +Know how to be with others
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Kanban Information: ���Help Users Learn Your Software Fast
" We want to give the user all the information s/he needs and only the information s/he needs.
" We want to deliver that information when s/he needs it – which implies, at the moment s/he has real work to do.
" The logical conclusion is that user assistance needs to be embedded in the software itself, in such a way that:
" The user can find it immediately, without excessive searching, if s/he needs it.
" If s/he doesn’t need it, it stays out of the way.
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
...AND WHEN????!
Integrated Competency Learning
Adapted by Dr. Neus Lorenzo from Phil Ball & Keith Kelly (2009) Ref: http://ow.ly/dLK8g & http://goo.gl/Ul3A2
+ Individually significant contextualisation (contingency)
+Socio-‐cultural construction (information sharing, mentoring)
+Procedural Memorisation
+ Cognitive construction and process reasoning
+Code: Mastery of the language, interface, iconography...
+Thematic knowledge (SME)
User !Learning Space!
! WHERE IN THIS SPACE DO YOU WANT YOUR
USERS?!
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As richness of content i n c r e a s e s , o u r knowledge becomes more and more complex, cognitively speaking. We return regularly to the same place, but on a higher cognitive level
COGNITIVE-‐SYMBOLIC COMPLEXITY
RICH
NES
S OF TH
E CO
NTE
NT
+!
+!-!
The Cognitive Spiral
Bloom’s Pyramid
Adapted from a scheme by Dr. Neus Lorenzo
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Integrated Learning: ���Dimensions of Competency
Integrated Learning
Literal Content
Communication
Cognition
Community
Complexity
Criteria Selection
A1 Beginner
A2 Basic
B1 Threshold
C1 Functional
B2 Advanced
C2 Mastery Quantity
Qua
lity
In moving from contingent need to confusion, we still learn more.
Interfaces, hardware, software, user assistance, hands-‐on and conceptual combined
COMPLEXITY ≠ CHAOS!
Quantity of information > contingent need learner gets confused, sense of chaos Can’t keep track of it all
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Blending Concepts and Tasks: ���Kanban Information meets DITA
• We often use concepts to introduce & lead into multiple tasks:
Concept: This concept explains what this element of the interface is all about. It is used in the following tasks:
Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
Task 4 • We don't know how else to do it, but this is an
inappropriate use of conceptual information: • Not good cognitive development • Not good Kanban
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Blending Concepts and Tasks: ���Kanban Information meets DITA
Why not use the DITA Task topic structure to deliver conceptual information where it will do the most good and be best remembered?
<task> Topic General conceptual information using the <context> element
Include decision support (Reusable for related tasks)
Step 1 <cmd> <stepresult> – What happens after execution – can include why
Step 2 <cmd> <info> -‐ Use when there is no result to embed concepts pertinent to the step. Make sure it relates to the task, but is also generalisable to other similar tasks, if appropriate
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
!
Example <shortdesc> (from tool tip)
<context> The first <p> comes
from tool tip
oXygen Author
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Use <choice> lists to include conceptual information
<cmd>
<choices>
<info>
FrameMaker 11
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<choicetable> offers another option
<cmd>
<choicetable>
All these elements are available after a <cmd>. Use the one that works best, semantically.
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
DITA Composite Topic – ���One Size Fits All
The composite topic begins, simply, with a <dita> tag. You can then insert any type of DITA topic, nested within it. Use with great caution!
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
The Top of the Cognitive Spiral
This is where Integrated Learing
takes place
Equivalent to C levels of linguistic
competency
In Community!
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Software Integrated ���Learning Communities
• Not user groups or user forums, but integrated communities: • Information developers, and preferably coders and interface
designers, too
• Marketing, pre-‐sales, administration, anyone in the company you can get interested
• Expert users
• Beginners
• The curious
• Primary objective: creating an integrated, collaborative community that creates value that is re-‐injected into the system
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Vectorising = Actions
http://www.acreditacionfada.org/uploads/images/investigacion.jpg!
Product!
SME!
Wiki!
Online!Embedded!
User Assistance!CRM!
Marketing!
Tech Comm!
Users! Users!
Impacts
Influences
Interacts with
Integrates Helps Feed into
Facilitates
Feeds into
Fertilizes
Adds value to
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Self-Organised Groups We made great UA and nobody uses it or they can’t find it!
" Google is the first instinct! WHY? " Look for community guidance
" Use social networks to get answers
" Consult and contribute to crowd sourced materials
Culture of
information
sharing and
knowledge
building, in
side and ou
tside
the organi
sation.
The user decodes information so as to reconstruct it. S/he then recodes it into new knowledge.
And needs to come up first…
A Group is not a Community
“Finding is the new Doing” –Ian Barker
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
Integrated Learning Communities
Let people know what you are tracking.!
Attribute material you
reuse in your UA – from
both!
Turn users’ tips and
tricks into training
materials!
Presentation © 2013 Ray Gallon all rights reserved
RAY GALLON C U L T U R E C O M
Email: [email protected]
Thank You!
Google Plus: +Ray Gallon Twitter: @RayGallon LinkedIn: Ray Gallon
Check out my blog, Rant of a Humanist Nerd: http://humanistnerd.culturecom.net
Portions of this presentation based on research
by the Transformation Society Research group.
Link to the Adobe webinars here: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2013/02/cognitive_design_user_assistance.html
Two new white papers published on Adobe site: • Changing Paradigms in Technology and Communication • Crossing Boundaries: Implications for the Content Industries Link: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?event=custom&sku=FS0003673&e=tcs_whitepaper !