RE: Encouraging users to read online help

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

I may soon have to start creating Help for some of 
our anticipated products, and I am daunted by the 
prospect. 

No, I have no worries about figuring out a HATT. My 
worries are of a different order.

First, I imagine (for no good reason except that it's 
somehow better than imagining the other possibility...) 
that the creators of Help in general do so in good 
faith.

But... my experience with Help has been the same 
almost from the first time I ever encountered the 
beast. Oh, certainly it has gotten prettier and 
snazzier, and oh-thank-god quicker over the years, 
but those were never the major issues for me.

Rather, it has been my experience that when browsing 
for fun/interest, I find all sorts of neat things 
in Help, that I may even remember when the day comes 
to use them ... but when I dive into Help with a 
specific need and a deadline looming, well suddenly 
Help dries up.

It may be my peculiar brain. It may be bad habits 
that I picked up in pre-historic times. But, when 
the going gets tough, and the deadline draws nigh, 
I find that the keywords I'm looking for are rarely 
the ones that the Help is expecting. I may know what 
I want, but I find myself asking the wrong questions 
of the Help, and getting led astray.  Even the time 
it takes to go down the wrong paths is a nasty thing 
under time constraints.

I especially like getting an error message, and then 
not finding ANY keywords from that message in the Help.
It's nowhere in the Help index or contents, and a 
search returns "no match for text string".  

What, I'm the first person in the universe who ever 
triggered that error? Fat chance... it's got a certain 
well-worn aspect to it...            Gotta love it.

So, my trepidation is at the prospect of doing that to 
other people.  Oy vei.


/kevin

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