PrefFinder: getting the right preference in configurable software systems

Abstract

Highly configurable software, such as web browsers,databases or office applications, have a large number of preferences that the user can customize, but documentation of them may be scarce or distributed. A user, tester or service technician may have to search through hundreds or thousands of choices in multiple documents when trying to identify which preference will modify a particular system behavior. In this paper we present PrefFinder, a natural language framework that finds (and changes) user preferences. It is tied into an application's preference system and static documentation. We have instantiated PrefFinder as a plugin on two open source applications, and as a stand-alone GUI for an industrial application. PrefFinder finds thecorrect answer between 76-96% of the time on more than 175 queries. When compared to asking questions on a help forum or through the company's service center, we can potentially save days or even weeks of time.