Shöwn: Adaptive Conceptual Guidance Aids Example Use in Creative Tasks

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Examples are powerful tools for creativity and can provide inspiration and structure. However, novices often don't know when to seek examples or how to apply them. Showing real-time examples targeted to the current task (adaptive conceptual guidance) may help novices consider inspiration more often and better implement the ideas that examples illustrate. We explore this in a Wizard-of-Oz system, \textit{Sh{\"o}wn}, that presents examples based on the user's current activity while drawing a comic strip. \textit{Sh{\"o}wn}'s design is informed by interviews with novice and expert comic artists (n=18). A between-subjects experiment (n=24) found that adaptive conceptual guidance improved the clarity and uniqueness of drawings and stories compared to non-adaptive examples. Users also found the examples more useful and inspirational than those without adaptive guidance. Our results present an initial exploration of the challenges and benefits of contextually showing examples in interactive creativity tools.