(Illustrated above) A scientist sees an interesting trend in her analysis application, and she wants to modify her current visualization to highlight data that match some complex criteria. After clicking through some settings screens without success, she clicks on a contextual help icon to launch the relevant section of the application’s comprehensive help system.

An architect browses the support website of her building modeling application for “tips and tricks” on how to set up security permissions for subcontractors, before getting started on the necessary data entry.

A financial trader uses the phone number listed in an error message to call his trading application’s customer support team, whose members have access to an extensive help database.

What domain knowledge, existing skills, learned interaction expectations, and other background will targeted individuals likely bring to their experiences with your team’s product?

What parts of your application concepts may be inherently difficult for some workers to learn? Where might variabilities in work practices within targeted markets and organizations lead to additional learning needs for some users?

What high level gaps exist between what workers already know and what they may need to know in order to have positive user experiences with your computing tool?

What specific understanding gaps might your team identify for each of your primary functionality concepts?

What portions of your application concepts will probably be accessed infrequently in most organizations? What learning needs could arise from these cases?

Which of your sketched functional areas has, by design, more flexibility and less instructional content, with the assumption that workers will gain skills through ongoing use and would find directive scaffolding to be distracting?

What comprehensive assistance approaches are most appropriate for the learning needs your team has characterized?

In what cases might actual conversations be necessary to resolve knowledge workers’ issues? What feasible support can your team envision for these interactions?

How could the availability of instructional support be made contextually apparent in your computing tool without distracting from rehearsed, day to day interactions?

What media formats could appropriately represent canned instructional content in clear and engaging ways?

How might your envisioned approach for providing comprehensive instructional assistance tie into your concepts for introductory instruction? 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?