DocWizards: A system for authoring follow-me documentation wizards

Abstract

Traditional documentation for computer-based procedures is difficult to use: readers have trouble navigating long complex instructions, have trouble mapping from the text to display widgets, and waste time performing repetitive procedures. We propose a new class of improved documentation that we call follow-me documentation wizards. Follow-me documentation wizards step a user through a script representation of a procedure by highlighting portions of the text, as well application UI elements. This paper presents algorithms for automatically capturing follow-me documentation wizards by demonstration, through observing experts performing the procedure. We also present our DocWizards implementation on the Eclipse platform. We evaluate our system with an initial user study that showing that most users have a marked preference for this form of guidance over traditional documentation. Copyright 2005 ACM.