The problem of describing a problem: Supporting laypersons in presenting their queries to the Internet-based helpdesk

Internet-based helpdesks for hardware and software are a common way to get expert advice. To communicate effectively with experts, laypersons should be able to provide the expert with a concise and comprehensive description of their computer problem. However, previous research on computer helpdesks has shown that laypersons’ problem descriptions typically exhibit a number of unfavourable features making it difficult for the helpdesk expert to develop a correct understanding of the problem. Based on a discussion of these features, we developed a problem formulation script that supports laypersons in describing their computer problems. We conducted an experimental study (54 laypersons and 54 experts), which tested the effectiveness of different versions of the problem formulation script to improve the quality of laypersons’ problem descriptions. The results show that computer experts were best able to reconstruct the actual problem from the layperson's description if they were prompted to describe successively (1) the goal of their interaction with the computer, (2) the steps they had undertaken so far and (3) a hypothesis why they had failed to reach the aim. The script helped the laypersons provide the relevant context information necessary to develop an adequate mental model of the problem. Hence, guiding laypersons’ problem descriptions by a problem formulation script proved to be a successful approach to support Internet-based helpdesk communication between computer experts and laypersons.