Dynamic construction of animated help from application context

Abstract

Help provided as traditional text descriptions has become incompatible with graphical interfaces. Animation suggests a better association between help and a graphical interface. This paper describes a prototype system implemented to demonstrate the use of dynamic scenarios as help. A scenario animates the execution of a task as a sequence of steps in the actual interface and work context. Each scenario is dynamically generated depending on the current work context of the user. The system reasons from the user's request for help as well as from the context what and how much to animate.