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UNDO, an aid for explorative learning?

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Abstract

New users of an application system, especially computer novices, can become confused and frustrated after experiencing the first, perhaps not recoverable error situations during the early stages of exploration and learning. System facilities, which let users UNDO and REDO executed commands, are suggested to be an aid for active learning and can be used as a method for systematic exploration through recovering from unknown and newly explored (perhaps wrong) system states by cancelling executed commands with UNDO. An explorative learning experiment on a commercial graphics editor with a modified user interface revealed reasons, why one-step recall UNDO does not guarantee successful explorative learning of a complex cognitive skill such as graphics editing on computer.

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  1. Technical University of Darmstadt, D-6100, Darmstadt, Germany

    Harald E. Otto

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  1. Harald E. Otto
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Otto, H.E. UNDO, an aid for explorative learning?. J. of Comput. Sci. & Technol. 7, 226–236 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02946572

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