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RE: Inclusion of Field Descriptions in Help Systems
Subject:RE: Inclusion of Field Descriptions in Help Systems From:Mitch Gibbs <mgibbs -at- digitalimpact -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 20 Nov 2001 16:07:07 -0800
David Goldberg asks,
"I would like to know how others handle the definition of fields in
non-context sensitive Help systems for large software applications,
particularly using the RoboHTML and WebHelp products."
It will certainly depend on the nature of your app. If the application is
form-intensive (like many web-based apps), then field definitions are very
useful. In the form-intensive web-based app I'm currently working on, the
Help link on each page opens the help system to the appropriate top-level
topic for that page. In other words, the help is not context sensitive at
the field level, but only at the page level.
Each of these top level topics provides a paragraph or two of introduction
and orientation (How did I get here?, What's this page?, What can I do
here?) followed by a table that lists the names of every field and button on
the page. Each field name links to a descriptive popup. After the table, we
provide a list of links to other relevant topics (rather than See Also or
Related Topics buttons, which look cool but are less usable).
Some of the advantages to this approach:
-keeps topics short but maximizes the odds that the user will find what
they're looking for
-provides a familiar look to users
-allows you to reuse popup topics when the field or button appears in
multiple places in the app
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