contextguide

Contextguide is a term used to describe a set of approaches and tools designed to tailor guidance and content to a user’s current context. In software engineering, a contextguide may be implemented as a context-aware help system or as an adaptive tutorial that adjusts its prompts according to the user’s tasks, skill level, and prior actions. In artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction, the concept encompasses models that infer user goals from interaction history, environment, and inputs to generate contextualized suggestions or explanations.

Typical components include a context model that encodes user state, environment, and task; a guidance or content generator that produces explanations, steps, or prompts; and an interface layer that presents the guidance with appropriate granularity.

Applications span onboarding and training, customer support chatbots that adjust based on user situation, and knowledge bases that surface relevant articles. Design considerations include privacy and data minimization, transparency about how context is used, user control to override or reset context, and evaluation through user studies and task success rates.

Contextguides may be static, rule-based systems, or powered by machine learning and reinforcement learning that update recommendations over time. Related concepts include contextual help, context-aware computing, adaptive user interfaces, and explainable AI.