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User Education component library

This library contains the code that will allow you to implement In-Product-Help (IPH) and Tutorials in any framework, as well as display the "New" Badge on menus and labels.

[TOC]

Upstream dependencies

Familiarity with these libraries are strongly recommended; feel free to reach out to their respective OWNERS if you have any questions.

Directory structure

  • common - contains platform- and framework-agnostic APIs for working with HelpBubbles, IPH, and Tutorials.
  • test - contains common code for testing user education primitives
  • views - contains code required to display a HelpBubble in a Views-based UI, as well as "New" Badge primitives.
  • webui - contains code required to display a HelpBubble on a WebUI surface.

Application integration

The necessary IPH services have already been implemented in Chrome. If you are interested in extending User Education to another platform, see the section below.

Note: The rest of this document introduces User Education concepts and focuses on using existing services to create in-product help experiences.

Programming API

Help bubbles

The core presentation element for both IPH and Tutorials is the HelpBubble. A HelpBubble is a blue bubble that appears anchored to an element in your application's UI and which contains information about that element. For example, a HelpBubble might appear underneath the profile button the first time the user starts Chrome after adding a second profile, showing the user how they can switch between profiles.

Different UI frameworks have different HelpBubble implementations; for example, HelpBubbleViews. Each type of HelpBubble is created by a different HelpBubbleFactory, which is registered at startup in the global HelpBubbleFactoryRegistry. So for example, Chrome registers separate factories for Views, WebUI, and a Mac-specific factory that can attach a Views-based HelpBubble to a Mac native menu.

When it comes time to actually show the bubble, the HelpBubbleFactoryRegistry will need two things:

  • The TrackedElement the bubble will be anchored to
  • The HelpBubbleParams describing the bubble

The HelpBubbleFactoryRegistry will search its registered factories for one able to produce a help bubble in the framework that sees this element. It can then create our help bubble with the given HelpBubbleParams.

You will notice that this is an extremely bare-bones system. You are not expected to call HelpBubbleFactoryRegistry directly! Rather, the IPH and Tutorial systems use this API to show help bubbles.

In-Product Help (IPH)

In-Product Help is the simpler of the two ways to display help bubbles, and can even be the entry point for a Tutorial.

IPH are:

  • Spontaneous - they are shown to the user when a set of conditions are met; the user does not choose to see them.
  • Rate-limited - the user will only ever see a specific IPH a certain number of times, and will only see a certain total number of different IPH per session.
  • Simple - only a small number of templates approved by UX are available, for different kinds of User Education journeys.

In the code, an IPH is described by a FeaturePromo. Your application will provide a FeaturePromoController with a FeaturePromoRegistry. In order to add a new IPH, you will need to:

  1. Add the base::Feature corresponding to the IPH.
  2. Register the appropriate FeaturePromoSpecification describing your IPH journey (Registering your IPH).
  3. Configure the Feature Engagement backend for your IPH journey (Configuring when your IPH runs).
  4. Add hooks into your code to show/hide your IPH and dispatch events (Talking to the FE backend).
  5. Enable the feature via a trade study or Finch.

How to implement IPH diagram

In reality, you will likely never interact directly with the FeaturePromoController. In Chrome, these methods are wrapped by the BrowserWindow. You may access them by calling:

  • BrowserWindow::MaybeShowFeaturePromo()
  • BrowserWindow::MaybeShowStartupFeaturePromo()
  • BrowserWindow::CloseFeaturePromo()
  • BrowserWindow::CloseFeaturePromoAndContinue()

Registering your IPH

You will want to create a FeaturePromoSpecification and register it with FeaturePromoRegistry::RegisterFeature(). There should be a common function your application uses to register IPH journeys during startup; in Chrome it's MaybeRegisterChromeFeaturePromos().

There are several factory methods on FeaturePromoSpecification for different types of IPH:

  • CreateForToastPromo - creates a small, short-lived promo with no buttons that disappears after a short time.
    • These are designed to point out a specific UI element; you will not expect the user to interact with the bubble.
    • Because of this a screen reader message and accelerator to access the relevant feature are required; this will be used to make sure that screen reader users can find the thing the bubble is talking about.
  • CreateForSnoozePromo - creates a promo with "got it" and "remind me later" buttons and if the user picks the latter, snoozes the promo so it can be displayed again later.
  • CreateForTutorialPromo - similar to CreateForSnoozePromo() except that the "got it" button is replaced by a "learn more" button that launches a Tutorial.
  • CreateForLegacyPromo (DEPRECATED) - creates a toast-like promo with no buttons, but which does not require accessible text and has no or a long timeout. For backwards compatibility with older promos; do not use.

You may also call the following methods to add additional features to a bubble:

  • SetBubbleTitleText() - adds an optional title to the bubble; this will be in a larger font above the body text.
  • SetBubbleIcon() - adds an optional icon to the bubble; this will be displayed to the left (right in RTL) of the title/body.
  • SetBubbleArrow() - sets the position of the arrow relative to the bubble; this in turn changes the bubble's default orientation relative to its anchor.

These are advanced features

  • SetInAnyContext() - allows the system to search for the anchor element in any context rather than only the window in which the IPH is triggered.
  • SetAnchorElementFilter() - allows the system to narrow down the anchor from a collection of candidates, if there is more than one element maching the anchor's ElementIdentifier.

Configuring when your IPH runs

The Feature Engagement (FE) backend does all the heavy-lifting when it comes to showing your IPH at the right time. All you need to do is configure how often your IPH should show and how it interacts with other IPH.

You will need to become familiar with the terminology in the FE docs, but you will instead create the configuration through the FeatureConfig API.

Talking to the FE backend

Now that the IPH feature is created and configured, you will need to add hooks into your code to interact with the FE backend.

You should attempt to show the IPH at an appropriate point in the code. In Chrome, this would be a call to BrowserWindow::MaybeShowFeaturePromo(), or if your promo should run immediately at startup, BrowserWindow::MaybeShowStartupFeaturePromo().

You will also add additional calls to feature_engagement::Tracker::NotifyEvent() for events that should affect whether the IPH should display.

  • These events should also be referenced in the Feature Engagement configuration (FeatureConfig).
  • This should include the user actually engaging with the feature being promo'd.
  • You can retrieve the tracker and send an event in Chrome via BrowserView::NotifyFeatureEngagementEvent().

Optionally: you may add calls to programmatically end the promo when the user engages with your feature. In Chrome, you can use BrowserWindow::CloseFeaturePromo() or BrowserWindow::CloseFeaturePromoAndContinue().

Tutorials

Tutorials are the more complicated, in-depth way to display a series of help bubbles. Often an IPH is an entry point to a Tutorial but Tutorials can also be launched from e.g. a "What's New" or "Tips" page.

Tutorials are:

  • Intentional - the user must always opt-in to seeing a Tutorial.
  • Repeatable - the user may view a Tutorial any number of times, and may view any number of Tutorials.
  • In-Depth - a Tutorial can breadcrumb the user around the UI, requesting the user engage in any number of behaviors, and will respond to those actions.

Your application will provide a TutorialService with a TutorialRegistry. In order to add a new Tutorial, you will need to:

  1. Declare a TutorialIdentifier in an accessible location.
  2. Register the TutorialIdentifier and TutorialDescription (Defining and registering your tutorial).
  3. Create an entry point for the Tutorial, either by:
    • Directly calling TutorialService::StartTutorial()
    • Or registering an IPH using the CreateForTutorialPromo() factory method. This IPH will prompt the user to start your tutorial.

Notice that compared to an IPH, the tutorial itself does not require any base::Feature, FE configuration, or Finch configuration. This is because the tutorial is always initiated by the user. However, the IPH that launches your tutorial will need to be implemented and configured as outlined above (In-Produce Help (IPH)).

Defining and registering your Tutorial

A Tutorial is a stateful, executable object that "runs" the Tutorial itself; since they can't be reused, one needs to be created every time the Tutorial is started.

A TutorialDescription is the template from which a Tutorial is built. It describes each step your tutorial will show the user, similar to the FeaturePromoSpecification used to create an IPH. A TutorialDescription can be restarted, i.e. rebuilt into a new Tutorial, if you choose to allow it.

There are only a few fields in a TutorialDescription:

  • steps - Contains a sequence of user actions, UI changes, and the help bubbles that will be shown in each step.
  • histograms - Must be populated if you want UMA histograms regarding user engagement with your Tutorial.
    • The preferred syntax is: 
      const char kMyTutorialHistogramPrefix[] = "MyTutorial";

tutorial_description.histograms =
    user_education::MakeTutorialHistograms<kMyTutorialHistogramPrefix>(
        tutorial_description.steps.size());
    • The kMyTutorialHistogramPrefix needs to be declared as a local const char[] and have a globally-unique value. This will appear in UMA histogram entries associated with your tutorial. If this value is duplicated the histogram behavior will be undefined.
    • Note that this cannot be done automatically by the TutorialRegistry as the UMA histograms won't work without the static declarations implemented by the TutorialHistogramsImpl<> template class (via C++ template specialization magic).
  • can_be_restarted - If set to true the Tutorial will provide an option to restart on the last step, in case the user wants to see the Tutorial again.
    • Setting this to false (the default) will not prevent the user from triggering the Tutorial again via other means.

TutorialDescription::Step is a bit more complex. Steps may either be created all at once with the omnibus constructor, or created with the default constructor and then have each field set individually. The fields of the struct are as follows:

  • Help bubble parameters:
    • body_text_id - Localized string ID. The result is placed into HelpBubbleParams::body_text. If not set, this Tutorial step is a "hidden step" and will have no bubble.
    • title_text_id - Localized string ID. The result is placed into HelpBubbleParams::title_text.
    • element_id - Specifies the UI element the step refers to. If this is not a hidden step, the bubble will anchor to this element. Mandatory unless element_name is set.
    • arrow - Specifies how the HelpBubble for this step will anchor to the target element.
  • Interaction sequence parameters; see InteractionSequence for details:
    • step_type - Specifies the triggering condition of this step.
    • event_type - If step_type is kCustomEvent, specifies the custom event the step will transition on. Ignored otherwise.
    • name_elements_callback - Allows either the current element or some other element to be "named" for use later in the Tutorial. This allows a Tutorial to remember elements that may otherwise be ambiguous or not have an ElementIdentifier before the Tutorial runs.
    • element_name - Specifies that the step will target an element named via name_elements_callback in a previous step, rather than using element_id. The element must have been named and still be visible.
    • transition_only_on_event - When step_type is kShown or kHidden, causes this step to start only when a UI element actively becomes visible or loses visibility. Corresponds to InteractionSequence::StepBuilder::SetTransitionOnlyOnEvent().
    • must_remain_visible - Overrides the default "must remain visible" state of the underlying InteractionSequence::Step. Should only be set if the Tutorial won't work properly otherwise.

Notes:

  • TutorialDescription::Step is copyable and a step can be added to the steps member of multiple related TutorialDescriptions.
  • We are aware that the programming interface for Step is a little clunky; at some future point they will be moved to a builder pattern like FeaturePromoSpecification.
  • If you're not sure how to construct your Tutorial, reach out to one of the OWNERS of this library.

Once you have defined your Tutorial; call AddTutorial() on the TutorialRegistry provided by your application and pass both your TutorialIdentifier and your TutorialDescription.

"New" Badge

For implementation on adding a "New" Badge to Chrome, Googlers can refer to the following document: New Badge How-To and Best Practices.

Adding User Education to your application

There are a number of virtual methods that must be implemented before you can use these User Education libraries in a new application, mostly centered around localization, accelerators, and global input focus.

Fortunately for Chromium developers, the browser already has the necessary support built in for Views, WebUI, and Mac-native context menus. You may refer to the following locations for an example that could be extended to other platforms such as ChromeOS: