More on User Assistance/Help for web sites

["Chuck Martin" <twriter -at- sonic -dot- net>]

Thanks to the replies I've received so far. I had one respondent what said
Deva Tools were good and another who pointed me to a RoboHelp-generated
web-Help system.

I've found a few more Help systems on e-commerce sites. I'm starting to see
a pattern: Help links/buttons that open to a "main" Help page with
categorized links. Those links will go to:

- a task-based Help topic
- a long page with many Help "topics" and a list of mid-topic links at the
top
- a category page with links to topics

I guess what I'm wondering is how users would respond to this, where there
is no pretense of context sensitivity. This forces users at each step to (a)
find the link that relates to their immediate need, than (b) click that link
to actually get the information (hopefully). In some cases, this could take
2 or 3 or 4 clicks. I'm not sure this is a very good user
experience--especially as users are probably already frustrated because they
can't figure out what they need to do and are going to the Help in the first
place.

I had written to the Deva Tools folks and got a response from Ben Weisner
about a company that provides JavaScripting that would take display a
specific page within a framed help system. This looks like an interesting
premise.

But I still wonder if that "left nav" is really needed.

I'm thinking that one solution might be to break the topics into categories,
then when a user is on the site and clicks Help, one of the category pages
would appear. Another click would present a topic relevant to the user
goals. Still, that's a search and a click more than an ideal situation, yet
for a web site, rather than a standalone application, that may be the best
that can be reasonably done.

--
--
"I don't entirely understand it but it is true: Highly skilled
carpenters don't get insulted when told they are not architects,
but highly skilled programmers do get insulted when told
they are not UI designers."
      - anonymous programmer quoted in "GUI Bloopers"

Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net      www.writeforyou.com



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