{"id":3974,"date":"2012-06-19T07:28:16","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T07:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cherryleaf.com\/blog\/?p=3974"},"modified":"2012-06-19T07:28:16","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T07:28:16","slug":"towards-flow-based-user-assistance-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cherryleaf.com\/2012\/06\/towards-flow-based-user-assistance-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Towards Flow-Based User Assistance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Flow_(psychology)\">Flow theory<\/a> is a\u00a0psychological\u00a0concept that is gaining interest in e-learning. It is a concept that should be also considered in the fields of User Assistance and Technical Communication.<\/p>\n<p>Flow is akin to sportsmen being &#8220;in the zone&#8221; &#8211; flow is the situation where people are\u00a0happiest when they are completely engaged in a task.<\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Flow\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/f\/f6\/Challenge_vs_skill.svg\/300px-Challenge_vs_skill.svg.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"292\" \/>\n<p>Online Help has been traditionally interruptive &#8211; people have to\u00a0<del>subconsciously<\/del> admit they have failed and need to seek assistance from a Help file, Web page or user guide. The adoption of the term &#8220;User Assistance&#8221;, instead on online Help, is part of movement towards new models for minimising the situations where users get stuck, helping them quickly should that happen.<\/p>\n<p>The conditions necessary to achieve the flow state include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Having clear goals<\/li>\n<li>Direct and immediate feedback<\/li>\n<li>The right balance between the user&#8217;s ability level and the task<\/li>\n<li>An activity that is intrinsically rewarding.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Flow-based User Assistance complements concepts such as adaptive content, as it implies content should adapt dynamically\u00a0to explain information in the most suitable way. It also complements ideas such as affective assistance, conversation and community based documentation, in that these may be a more suitable &#8220;tone of voice&#8221; in certain circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, this means that User Assistance is likely to be embedded into the User Interface &#8211; for example, helping explain what certain concepts mean, and what makes a good choice.<\/p>\n<p>It is a very good approach to take if you are developing apps for mobile phones or tablets. This is, in part, because the iOS operating system has limited multitasking capabilities &#8211; you have to interrupt one activity in order to do another.<\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"apps\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/4\/41\/Apple_Store.jpg\/250px-Apple_Store.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" \/>\n<p>To adopt a flow-based approach, User Assistance must be planned and considered from the very start of any software project. As it is not a bolt-on to the application, it cannot be left to the end of the project. Guidance text becomes located in numerous different places.<\/p>\n<p>The reward for taking this approach is that users get stuck less often, enjoy the application more and become more capable users, perhaps even at peak performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flow theory is a\u00a0psychological\u00a0concept that is gaining interest in e-learning. It is a concept that should be also considered in the fields of User Assistance and Technical Communication. Flow is akin to sportsmen being &#8220;in the zone&#8221; &#8211; flow is the situation where people are\u00a0happiest when they are completely engaged in a task. Online Help&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cherryleaf.com\/2012\/06\/towards-flow-based-user-assistance-2\/\" title=\"Read Towards Flow-Based User Assistance\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[211,145,236,222,230,229],"tags":[439,303,295,264,440],"class_list":["post-3974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-help","category-technical-author","category-technical-documentation","category-trends","category-usability","category-user-assistance","tag-flow","tag-trends","tag-usability","tag-user-assistance","tag-user-interface"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Towards Flow-Based User Assistance - Cherryleaf<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cherryleaf.com\/2012\/06\/towards-flow-based-user-assistance-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Towards Flow-Based User Assistance - Cherryleaf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Flow theory is a\u00a0psychological\u00a0concept that is gaining interest in e-learning. It is a concept that should be also considered in the fields of User Assistance and Technical Communication. Flow is akin to sportsmen being &#8220;in the zone&#8221; &#8211; flow is the situation where people are\u00a0happiest when they are completely engaged in a task. Online Help... 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