Graphstract

Jeff Huang, Michael B. B. Twidale
2007 Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology - UIST '07  
We explore the use of abstracted screenshots as part of a new help interface. Graphstract, an implementation of a graphical help system, extends the ideas of textually oriented Minimal Manuals to the use of screenshots, allowing multiple small graphical elements to be shown in a limited space. This allows a user to get an overview of a complex sequential task as a whole. The ideas have been developed by three iterations of prototyping and evaluation. A user study shows that Graphstract helps
more » ... rs perform tasks faster on some but not all tasks. Due to their graphical nature, it is possible to construct Graphstracts automatically from pre-recorded interactions. A second study shows that automated capture and replay is a low-cost method for authoring Graphstracts, and the resultant help is as understandable as manually constructed help.
doi:10.1145/1294211.1294248 dblp:conf/uist/HuangT07 fatcat:ms572cnovrdqhfg7t54jnyn6fm