Exploration Environments: Concept and Empirical Evaluation

Abstract

Exploration environments support users to learn groupware in a self-directed way. They allow users to perceive the way a groupware function works by simulating the impacts of the function's execution on other users' interfaces. This paper motivates and describes the concept of exploration environments and presents an exemplary implementation. Moreover, it reports about the results of an experimental study, which evaluated the effects of this concept on users' learning. The results of this study are discussed and compared to findings from a field study which evaluated the concept, as well.