When 'one fits all' does not fit - Study of visualization types for mobile help systems

Abstract

An open question today is how the visualization of a mobile assistance interface should look like, e.g. if it should disappear automatically after some seconds or a user interaction is required. In this paper a survey is conducted that has the goal to gather practice-oriented interaction design guidelines to support design decisions of mobile help visualizations. The survey is based on four different visualization strategies in order to find the most appropriate. Five usage scenarios from the field of mobile messaging were selected. The study shows the first time that users have a concept of criticality for usage problems and that 'one fits all' solutions fail for (huge) user groups. © 2009 The Author.