Educating users to formulate questions in Q&A platforms: A scaffold for google sheets

Abstract

Different studies point out that spreadsheets are easy to use but difficult to master. When difficulties arise, home users and small-and-medium organizations might not always resort to a help desk. Alternatively, Question&Answer platforms (e.g. Stack Overflow) come in handy. Unfortunately, we can not always expect home users to properly set good questions. However, examples can be a substitute for long explanations. This is particularly important for our target audience who might lack the skills to describe their needs in abstract terms, and hence, examples might be the easiest way to get the idea through. This sustains the effort to leverage existing spreadsheet tools with example-centric inline question posting. This paper describes such an effort for Google Sheets. The extension assists users in posing their example-based questions without leaving Google Sheets. These questions are next transparently channeled to Stack Overflow.