Interview Findings

Tutorial creating:

• People are not opposed to creating their own tutorials, but they were not very excited about it.
• There are so many online resources already available (youtube, “how to” via google search, specific sites), people worry that they wouldn’t have a unique contribution or wouldn’t be as helpful. (Option to upload anonymously may help with this lack of confidence.)
• There was not a big concern about copyright issues with uploading content (1 person of 9 expressed some concern).
• Tutorials need to have enough detail – we would need to determine what the right level of detail is, though.  How many screenshots to include?  How much description?

Search/help patterns

• Once people have found a successful website/”tutor” they keep going back
• Some people search for helpful tutorials or tips by user (within a help site) – they trust people who have submitted helpful content in the past.
• The expertise level of posters and responders is important – help responses and tutorial contributions shouldn’t be over people’s head.
• We need to be conscious of findability – helping people find what they are looking for, and offering many ways to get to information.  This was a concern for novices – people don’t know how to find what they need, and they also had trouble ‘re-finding’ information they had found in the past.