Nanomentoring: Investigating How Quickly People Can Help People Learn Feature-Rich Software
For users of feature-rich software seeking rapid help from online forums, this work demonstrates the feasibility of ultra-rapid human-to-human assistance, though the findings are preliminary and domain-specific.
The paper investigates whether experts can provide quick help (under 60 seconds) for short questions about feature-rich software, finding that over half of the nanoquestions could be answered helpfully within that time. It also explores preferences between text and audio answers.
People frequently use online forums to get help from experts to answer questions about feature-rich software. However, they may have to wait minutes, hours, or even days to receive advice. We investigate the potential to leverage experts to provide quicker help. We collected over 200 questions from online forums for two feature-rich software applications and suspected a quarter were short enough to be answered in less than one minute (defined as nanoquestions). We then conducted a study with 28 experts recruited from help forums to confirm this assumption, and explore whether there was a preference between text and audio answers. For more than half of the nanoquestions participants saw, they could give advice that they believed was helpful in under 60 seconds. Finally, we collected feedback about what makes a question quick to answer to inspire the design of future tools for ultra rapid human-to-human help.