Tell Me More! Soliciting Reader Contributions to Software Tutorials

Online software tutorials help a wide range of users acquireskills with complex software, but are not always easy to follow.For example, a tutorial might target users with a high skill level,or it might contain errors and omissions. Prior work has shownthat user contributions, such as user comments, can add value to atutorial. Building on this prior work, we investigate an approachto soliciting structured tutorial enhancements from tutorialreaders. We illustrate this approach through a prototype calledAntorial, and evaluate its impact on reader contributions through amulti-session study with 13 participants. Our findings suggest thatscaffolding tutorial contributions has positive impacts on both thenumber and type of reader contributions. Our findings also pointto design considerations for systems that aim to supportcommunity-based tutorial refinement, and suggest promisingdirections for future research.