Investigating the Post-Training Persistence of Expert Interaction Techniques

Abstract

Expert interaction techniques enable users to greatly improve their performance; however, to realize these advantages, the user must first acquire the skill necessary to use a technique, then choose to use it over competing novice techniques. This article investigates several factors that may influence whether use of an expert technique persists when the context of use changes. Two studies examine the effect of changing performance requirements, and find that a high performance requirement imposed in a training context can effectively push users to adopt an expert technique, and that use of the technique is maintained when the requirement is subsequently reduced or removed. In a final study, performance requirement, high-level task, and environment of use are changed—participants played a training game to learn the menu for a drawing application, which they then used to complete a series of drawings over the following week. Participants exhibited a somewhat surprising “all-or-nothing” effect, using the expert technique nearly exclusively or not at all, and maintaining this behavior over a range of qualitatively different tasks. This suggests that switching to an expert technique involves a global change by the user, rather than an incremental change as suggested by previous work.

Investigating the Influence of Interaction on Learning Persistence in Online Settings: Moderation or Mediation of Academic Emotions?

“…However, there still exists a research gap of investigating the mattering factors and driving mechanism promoting students' learning persistence in online learning environments, which provides theoretical ground and practical reference for facilitating students' learning persistence in the future. Transactional distance theory, developed from the work of Moore [4], is an applicable theoretical foundation to explain the antecedents and driving mechanism of learning outcomes, because students' interaction has been proven to be a crucial predictor of learning persistence and academic achievement [5]. In addition, students' interactions have a close relationship with emotional and social engagement [6] and sense of community [7], which is of great significance in effectively promoting the learning persistence [8].…”

M3 Gesture Menu

“…In a wider context than marking menus, supporting novice to expert behavior transition has been more extensively explored and studied (see [14,34,56] for reviews). Many interaction techniques have been proposed.…”

“…Many interaction techniques have been proposed. For example, word-gesture keyboards [51,26,52] enables better typing efficiency by connecting individual key taps into a single stroke gesture; ExposeHK [40] prompts hotkey information when the modifier key is being held; FastTap [23,35,22,34] displays a grid of buttons upon a finger pausing on a corner activation button; and similarly, HandMark Menus [49,46] reveal the menu interface when placing a hand onto the touchscreen after a delay.…”

“…This class of interaction techniques, sometimes referred to as "rehearsal-based interfaces" [22,56,34], is similar to marking menus in four aspects regardless of their interaction modalities. First, they all follow the Kurtenbach et al's rehearsal hypothesis [31], i.e., the novice method is the physical rehearsal of the expert technique.…”

“…One important takeaway from FastTap research is that following the rehearsal hypothesis alone does not guarantee the transition to the expert technique [22,34]. The transition may involve a global decision change by users driven by their intrinsic or extrinsic motivation such as the need for improving performance, perceived cost of error, and guidance.…”