(Illustrated above) A financial trader likes that the trading application screens that he uses throughout his day contain only essential content and functionality, without any instructions or extras. When he accesses settings dialogs and other secondary areas of the computing tool, he often reads contextual instructions without realizing that he is using them.

An architect has learned specialized shortcuts to rapidly interact with her building modeling application without having to shift her focus to its menu structure. Since she uses certain functions very frequently, she had no qualms about learning these somewhat arbitrary interaction mappings.

A scientist mostly just wants to see data visualizations on her screen, not excess interface controls or content, but she likes to have quick access to key definitions. Each of the tools that she uses does things slightly differently and she sometimes forgets what some of the data parameters in a given screen actually mean.

How much learning investment might targeted individuals be willing to make in order to use the various functionality concepts that your team has envisioned?

How might workers’ expectations around skill acquisition vary based on the value that they assign to a given functional option in the context of their own work practices?

How might your product’s overall strategic message and brand promise affect users’ motivations? What sources of value could be compelling enough to seem worthy of learning effort?

What areas and pathways in your team’s application concepts are likely to be accessed frequently and will probably become well known through normal use?

What portions of your computing tool will users, by design, rarely access?

What gap exists between what targeted workers already know and what they may need to know in order to have positive experiences with your sketched functionalities?

How might your team use the above understandings to categorically prioritize tradeoffs between initial learnability and skilled use in different parts of your product?

In particular, how might your team place an emphasis on envisioning appropriate interaction constraints and instructions for complex functional areas that workers will rarely see?

Where might directive limits on interactive flexibility valuably steer users toward their goals and prevent some types of errors?

Where might contextual instruction provide value in different functionality concepts? How might your team present this instructional content in clear and engaging ways?

Where might it make sense to drive users toward an application’s comprehensive instructional assistance offerings, rather than include such content in the context of “normal” interactions?

How might your envisioned approach for supporting different types of skill acquisition tie into your concepts for introductory experiences? How might it relate to your conventions for error prevention and handling?

Do you have enough information to usefully answer these and other envisioning questions? What additional research, problem space models, and design concepting could valuably inform your team’s application envisioning efforts?