Designing for curiosity-driven software learning

Abstract

The versatility of feature-rich software makes them practically impossible to master – there is always the opportunity to learn something new, whether it would be a new software feature, or a new approach for a familiar task. While most research on software learnability has studied software learning that is driven by a necessity to complete a certain task (e.g., [1,3,4]), our research investigates software learning that is driven by a users’ curiosity and intrinsic motivation to expand their software skills. We investigate how to design and build tools to support different activities associated with the process, such as curiosity-driven exploration of software tutorials and reflection on curiosity-driven software learning.