Introducing Mobile Device-Based Interactions to Users: An Investigation of Onboarding Tutorials

Various built-in sensors enable interacting with mobile devices beyond the screen. So-called mobile device-based interaction techniques are characterized by movements and positions in real space, e.g. twisting the device to switch between front and rear camera or pouring photos from one device into another for sharing. Although interactions should be as intuitive as possible, it is often necessary to introduce them, especially if they are complex or new to the user. Applications have to present interactions appropriately so that users can understand and use them easily. We conducted a user study to investigate the suitability of onboarding tutorials for mobile device-based interaction techniques. Results show that these types of tutorials are insufficient for communicating mobile device-based interactions, mainly because of their spatial and tangible characteristics but also their collaborative and representative interdependencies. Based on this, we propose suggestions for improving the design of tutorials for device-based interactions with mobile phones.