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Users Preferences Regarding Types of Help: Different Contexts Comparison

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Information Technology and Systems (ICITS 2020)

Abstract

Despite the significant advance in usability and intuitiveness of software interfaces, users still use help systems to seek solutions concerning doubts, whether they are beginners or advanced in the use of the software. Therefore, entirely intuitive, self-communicating interfaces that, regardless of task and user, do not require help systems, still do not exist. This study, as an exploratory type, aimed to verify if users refer to types of help significantly at different levels of intensity and preference when compared an initial user contact with software to a specific moment of doubt concerning any tool or task after being familiar. Thus, a user preference study was conducted by applying a questionnaire to 104 students of Software Engineering undergraduate course at the University of Brasília, Brazil. After that, the results from the two contexts were compared. Analysis of the data suggested that users refer more to types of help at an initial contact with software, and usually, they do not search directly for help documentation, referring more to search engines.

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Correspondence to André B. de Sales .

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Palmeira, E.G.Q., Roche-Lima, A., de Sales, A.B. (2020). Users Preferences Regarding Types of Help: Different Contexts Comparison. In: Rocha, Á., Ferrás, C., Montenegro Marin, C., Medina García, V. (eds) Information Technology and Systems. ICITS 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1137. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40690-5_30

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