Tools for online tutorials: comparing capture devices, tutorial representations, and access devices

TL;DR

This paper investigates the creation and viewing of online tutorials using head-mounted capture devices like Google Glass, comparing different media capture and access methods, and highlighting user preferences and performance differences.

Contribution

It introduces a media-capture tool for Google Glass, compares wearable and tripod camera capture methods, and evaluates tutorial access devices, providing insights into user preferences and effectiveness.

Findings

Authors prefer wearable capture devices for recording activities involving larger objects.

Tutorial authors favor document-based multimedia tutorials for ease of creation.

Consumers prefer stable, tripod-recorded videos over head-mounted recordings for viewing.

Abstract

Tutorials are one of the most fundamental means of conveying knowledge. Ideally when the task involves physical or digital objects, tutorials not only describe each step with text or via audio narration but show it as well using photos or animation. In most cases, online tutorial authors capture media from handheld mobile devices to compose these documents, but increasingly they use wearable devices as well. In this work, we explore the full life-cycle of online tutorial creation and viewing using head-mounted capture and displays. We developed a media-capture tool for Google Glass that requires minimal attention to the capture device and instead allows the author to focus on creating the tutorial's content rather than its capture. The capture tool is coupled with web-based authoring tools for creating annotatable videos and multimedia documents. In a study comparing standalone (camera on tripod) versus wearable capture (Google Glass) as well as two types of multimedia representation for authoring tutorials, we show that tutorial authors have a preference for wearable capture devices, especially when recording activities involving larger objects in non-desktop environments. Authors preferred document-based multimedia tutorials because they are more straightforward to compose and the step-based structure translates more directly to explaining a procedure. In addition, we explored using head-mounted displays for accessing tutorials in comparison to lightweight computing devices such as tablets. Our study included tutorials recorded with the same capture methods as in our access study. We found that although authors preferred head-mounted capture, tutorial consumers preferred video recorded by a camera on tripod that provides a more stable image of the workspace.