This content originally appeared on NN/g latest articles and announcements and was authored by Page Laubheimer
Summary: Tutorials interrupt users, don’t necessarily improve task performance, and are quickly forgotten. Contextual help signals can avoid these pitfalls but require unintrusive ways to activate.
I recently purchased a bike that has an unusual feature –- instead of the classic chain drive system, it features a carbon-fiber belt that, doesn’t require messy grease, is nearly silent, and won’t rust in the rain. But, because it’s a fairly novel system for a bike, I had no idea how to properly set it up. Luckily, there was an app to help with that task, and it centers around a fairly unique interaction: you pluck the carbon-fiber belt on the bike as if it were a guitar string, and the app measures the sound’s frequency with the microphone in your mobile device to tell you whether the belt is properly tensioned. Neat!
When I first launched the app, it ushered me into a long tutorial on how to set up the new belt. The multistep tutorial was nice and clear, except for one big thing –- once I finished it, I couldn’t remember how to do the procedure on the setup screen, and, even worse, I couldn’t figure out how to launch the tutorial again. Eventually, I realized that there was a list of instructions available in the Help menu, but that still required me to memorize the steps, go back to the main part of the app, and complete the process with all that information in my working memory .
Consider another recent experience. I was trying to dispute a fraudulent credit-card charge in my bank’s mobile app. I was, as you might imagine, a bit stressed. As I logged into the app, hoping to get things resolved quickly, I was bombarded with this walkthrough:
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This content originally appeared on NN/g latest articles and announcements and was authored by Page Laubheimer
Page Laubheimer | Sciencx (2023-02-12T20:00:00+00:00) Onboarding Tutorials vs. Contextual Help. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2023/02/12/onboarding-tutorials-vs-contextual-help/
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