A software wizard or setup assistant or multi-step form is a user interface that leads a user through a sequence of small steps, [1] [2] like a dialog box to configure a program for the first time. A complex, rare, or unfamiliar task may be easier with a wizard that breaks the task into simpler pieces. But a wizard may be a barrier to deeper understanding, and a substitute for clearer design. [3]
Before the 1990s, "wizard" was a common term for a technical expert, comparable to "hacker." [4] The 1985 textbook Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs was nicknamed the "Wizard Book" [5] for the illustration on its cover; its first chapter says, "A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit." [6]
When developing the first version of its desktop publishing software, Microsoft Publisher, around 1991, Microsoft wanted to help users create well-presented documents in spite of their lack of graphic design skills. Microsoft reasoned that, no matter the tools a program offered, users would not know how best to use them. Publisher's "Page Wizards" instead provided a set of forms to produce a complete document layout, based on a professionally designed template, which could then be manipulated with the standard tools. [7]
Wizards had been in development at Microsoft for several years before Publisher, notably for Microsoft Access, which wouldn't ship until November 1992. Wizards were intended to learn from how someone used a program and anticipate what they may want to do next, guiding them through more complex sets of tasks by structuring and sequencing them. They also served to teach the product by example. As early as 1989, Microsoft discussed using voice and talking heads as guides, but multimedia-capable hardware was not yet widespread. [8]
The feature spread quickly to other applications. In 1992, Excel 4.0 for Mac introduced wizards for tasks like building crosstab tables; [9] Office 95 introduced the "Answer Wizard" for querying help pages with natural language; [10] and Windows later used wizards for tasks like adding a printer, configuring an Internet connection, or installing new applications. [7] By 2001, wizards had become commonplace in most consumer-oriented operating systems.
On the Mac OS, starting with tools like the Setup Assistant introduced in Mac OS 8.0, similar tools began to be called "assistants" (not to be confused with the Apple Newton's "Assist" feature). The "Setup Assistant" is run when the Macintosh starts up out of the box or after a fresh installation, and a similar process also takes place on Apple iOS. The "Network Setup Assistant" is similar to the Windows "New Connection Wizard." GNOME also refers to its wizards as "assistants". Oracle Designer used wizards for designing applications and databases.
The Microsoft Manual of Style (Version 3.0) advises technical writers to refer to these assistants as "wizards" and to use lowercase letters. But as wizards became ubiquitous, the term disappeared. Apps and websites may use wizard-like guided steps to "onboard" new users or guide them through a task, but these features are often not explicitly labeled a "wizard". [11]
The following screenshots show part of the seven-step installation wizard for the operating system Kubuntu. Each step is necessary, but unrelated to the others; they are presented one at a time, so as not to overwhelm. The user can go back and forward through the steps; early steps also have an option to quit. Options may default to a choice, so that a user without an opinion can accept the designer's best judgment. Progress through the steps is shown on the left. The last screen has no options or inputs, but summarizes what was done.
Wizards have been criticized for being ponderous, stripping questions of context, and obscuring the underlying operations. [12] The criticism is common enough that one guide to wizard design starts by addressing the popular perception that a wizard is "just a patch for a bad interface". [1]
Alan Cooper sees wizards as segregating new and expert users, abdicating the responsibility of designing a single coherent interface; they are "grafted on to meet the marketing department's perception of new users. Experts rarely use them, and beginners soon desire to discard these embarrassing reminders of their ignorance. But the perpetual intermediate majority is perpetually stuck with them." He compares them to training wheels that must be easily removed. A wizard "attempts to guarantee success" by treating the user as a machine who merely sets the rhythm of the steps; when every option has a default, "the user learns that he merely clicks the Next button on each screen without critically analyzing why." Wizards often don't clarify the underlying concepts, he writes; "They are giving programmers license to put raw implementation model interfaces on complex features with the bland assurance that: 'We'll make it easy with a wizard.'" [3]
A context menu is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choices that are available in the current state, or context, of the operating system or application to which the menu belongs. Usually the available choices are actions related to the selected object. From a technical point of view, such a context menu is a graphical control element.
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, and a debugger. Some IDEs, such as IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and Lazarus contain the necessary compiler, interpreter or both; others, such as SharpDevelop and NetBeans, do not.
In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. The desktop environment was seen mostly on personal computers until the rise of mobile computing. Desktop GUIs help the user to easily access and edit files, while they usually do not provide access to all of the features found in the underlying operating system. Instead, the traditional command-line interface (CLI) is still used when full control over the operating system is required.
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily being popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, web browsing, and RSS news aggregation.
System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. Examples of system software include operating systems (OS).
In user interface design for computer applications, a modal window is a graphical control element subordinate to an application's main window.
CUPS is a modular printing system for Unix-like computer operating systems which allows a computer to act as a print server. A computer running CUPS is a host that can accept print jobs from client computers, process them, and send them to the appropriate printer.
The taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running programs. The taskbar and the associated Start Menu were created and named in 1993 by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft who had previously collaborated on great ape language research with the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner at Harvard.
Installation of a computer program, is the act of making the program ready for execution. Installation refers to the particular configuration of software or hardware with a view to making it usable with the computer. A soft or digital copy of the piece of software (program) is needed to install it. There are different processes of installing a piece of software (program). Because the process varies for each program and each computer, programs often come with an installer, a specialised program responsible for doing whatever is needed for the installation. Installation may be part of a larger software deployment process.
Microsoft Project is project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.
Microsoft Office 2003 is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, 2003, exactly two years after the release of Windows XP. It was the successor to Office XP and the predecessor to Office 2007. The Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac was released on May 11, 2004.
Microsoft Office XP is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to retail on May 31, 2001, less than five months prior to the release of Windows XP. It is the successor to Office 2000 and the predecessor of Office 2003. A Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office v. X was released on November 19, 2001.
In computing, a shell is a computer program that exposes an operating system's services to a human user or other programs. In general, operating system shells use either a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI), depending on a computer's role and particular operation. It is named a shell because it is the outermost layer around the operating system.
A power user is a user of computers, software and other electronic devices, who uses advanced features of computer hardware, operating systems, programs, or websites which are not used by the average user. A power user might not have extensive technical knowledge of the systems they use but is rather characterized by competence or desire to make the most intensive use of computer programs or systems.
XVT is a software development environment for building cross-platform GUI applications in C or C++. XVT allows developers to graphically lay out an application's GUI, and provides cross-platform libraries to aid development.
Mobile app development is the act or process by which a mobile app is developed for one or more mobile devices, which can include personal digital assistants (PDA), enterprise digital assistants (EDA), or mobile phones. Such software applications are specifically designed to run on mobile devices, taking numerous hardware constraints into consideration. Common constraints include CPU architecture and speeds, available memory (RAM), limited data storage capacities, and considerable variation in displays and input methods. These applications can be pre-installed on phones during manufacturing or delivered as web applications, using server-side or client-side processing to provide an "application-like" experience within a web browser.
Workbench is the desktop environment and graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed by Commodore International for their Amiga line of computers. Workbench provides the user with a graphical interface to work with file systems and launch applications. It uses a workbench metaphor for representing file system organisation.
A number of computer operating systems employ security features to help prevent malicious software from gaining sufficient privileges to compromise the computer system. Operating systems lacking such features, such as DOS, Windows implementations prior to Windows NT, CP/M-80, and all Mac operating systems prior to Mac OS X, had only one category of user who was allowed to do anything. With separate execution contexts it is possible for multiple users to store private files, for multiple users to use a computer at the same time, to protect the system against malicious users, and to protect the system against malicious programs. The first multi-user secure system was Multics, which began development in the 1960s; it wasn't until UNIX, BSD, Linux, and NT in the late 80s and early 90s that multi-tasking security contexts were brought to x86 consumer machines.
Windows Vista contains a range of new technologies and features that are intended to help network administrators and power users better manage their systems. Notable changes include a complete replacement of both the Windows Setup and the Windows startup processes, completely rewritten deployment mechanisms, new diagnostic and health monitoring tools such as random access memory diagnostic program, support for per-application Remote Desktop sessions, a completely new Task Scheduler, and a range of new Group Policy settings covering many of the features new to Windows Vista. Subsystem for UNIX Applications, which provides a POSIX-compatible environment is also introduced.