Request for user feedback: Just-In-Time Advice

[AristosQueue (NI)]

An ongoing debate within LabVIEW R&D needs some more customer input in order to be resolved.

In LV7.0, we added Just-In-Time Advice dialogs (aka JIT dialogs). Those are the small dialogs that you see when, for example, you drop a stacked sequence structure and you are informed about the new flat sequence structure. See the attached image for an example.  We were terrified of introducing something always in your face and getting a response like Microsoft's Clippy, but we wanted a way to tell customers, particularly upgrade customers, about things that had changed and improved ways of using old features. The advice dialogs really aren't targeted at new users, since for them, everything is new.

We need to know if we succeeded and whether or not the design of those diialogs should be changed. Only a few customers have ever given feedback about the JIT dialogs. That feedback has been fairly off-hand such as, "I'm glad that particular dialog was there to help me." But we really don't have information about whether the dialogs would be more helpful or less if some of their UI aspects changed. The problem we're having is that we in LabVIEW R&D wipe our .ini files frequently as we test new versions, so the JIT dialogs are always popping up. This makes a lot of developers want to change or remove the JIT dialogs entirely. So we need a clear picture of whether or not this feature is helpful to our users.

Please think about times you have seen the JIT dialogs and whether you were annoyed by them, helped by them, etc, and reply to this message with your experiences. Separately, I'll post some of the reasons why we made the JIT dialogs behave the way they do. But I'd first like to hear some customer feedback with out the biasing, pro or con, that an explanation might have.

--- Stephen Mercer
-= LabVIEW R&D =-

[<Mike Ross> mross@smpcorp.com]

Annoying - but I haven't looked for a way to disable them yet.

Frankly, I assumed they were for new users and I can't recall reading any of the info.  Maybe I will stop going for the X so fast and see what there is to see.


Mike

[J.C._Flores]

I remember when they first came out that they intrigued me somewhat.  It didn't take long (probably 2 weeks or so) before I started viewing the JIT as an annoying feature.  I _always_ disable it on every new LabVIEW environment I work on.  Yeah, it does remind me of the MS Clippy.  🙂

-J.C. Flores

[Will.D]

I also found it somewhat helpful for a week or so, but then just found it annoying.  I also turn it off as one of the first things I do when setting up a new LabVIEW environment.

[Lavezza]

I think it is a good feature, but I'd like to make some suggestions.

1) When the dialog pops up (like your attachment), it would be nice if I could tell it right then that I don't care about that advice. Right now you have to click on the link and then say you don't want the advice in the future. I think it is that extra step that is really annoying. I think, like most people, my instinct is to just close the dialog. Then next time I run LabVIEW I have to deal with it again. After the 5th time dismissing the damn thing I turn it off.

2) It would be nice to have an easy way to turn JIT advice off for a particular session. For example, I'm called on to help get new employees up to speed in LabVIEW. When I sit down at their computer to help design/debug things, I would really like to turn off JIT advice but just for my session. I don't want to change the other persons settings.

3) It would also be nice to be able to turn off JIT advice without going to the options.

So, I guess what I would like is this. When the JIT advice dialog comes up, instead of only having the link to the advice I'd like to see some a button that will turn off this topic in the future, a button that will turn it off for this session of LabVIEW and a button that will turn JIT off for good (with a verification dialog).

So, experience programmers with a new install will just turn it off for good the first time it pops up. Experience programmers on someone else's machine can turn it off without messing up the other persons ini file and I can leave it on when LV8 comes out and just dismiss the old advice quickly as it comes up.

Pat

[tbob]

I also found it annoying, similar to MS Clippy and all of the XP popups telling you such nonsense like there are unused icons on my desktop.  Things like this belong in a what's new file that can be viewed when needed.

[sth]

This is an age old problem. How to be a backseat driver without seeming to be intrusive. Visually I really hate things popping up on my screen where I don't expect it. The help window constantly refreshing and changing sizes is annoying as well.

The first time it repeats advice, I kill it. Maybe there is something useful that I am missing but this is not the best way for me to absorb that information. The annoyance factor is the first reaction. I prefer the list of new features and usually someone on the info-labview list points out a feature I should be using.

Yes it did first strike me as emulating MS Bob or Clippy. At least this has an easy way to remove it.

What might be a more humane interface is a when JIT has something to say a small icon appears on the diagram menu bar. You can click this to show the advice or ignore it. After some number of actions after the icon turns back to grey since by then you obviously don't want to know it. This is more like the warnings in the error dialog box. In fact you could have a cumulative advice box that looks at the diagram and lists 5 things it wants to say. It is up to the programmer to decide if they want to show the advice or not, just as they decide if they want to see all those warnings or not.

-Scott

[johnsold]

I turned it off so long ago that I had forgotten that it even existed. A system as suggested by sth would not be so obtrusive and might even be useful.

Using LV since version 1 without JIT Advice.

Lynn

[John_Howard]

It seems much more annoying than it is helpful to me.  Basically, if I need help, I'll ask for it by going to the 'help' menu.  Otherwise, just leave me alone and let me get my work done.  🙂

[MichaelAivaliotis]

On my personal system, I have disabled this feature. Why? because it's really annoying. I pretty much know all the tips and tricks it's about to tell me anyway. The troublesome JIT dialog pops-up many times on my customer's PCs however. Mainly because they really don't know how to go into the options and disable it. I think, if you're going to intrude on someone's concentration and totally distract them from the problem at hand, then you only get 3 chances. If the user has closed the window 3 times without reading the advice then LabVIEW should take a hint and just go away permanently. The MS clipit guy does this by asking you if you want to disable it from now on. Provide polite advice and know when you're being annoying.

In the physical world, when someone says "ya, I know, leave me a lone!", you take a hint, don't you? :manwink: