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RE: help

Subject: RE: help
From: "Diane Evans" <diane_evans -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 14:27:16 -0700


Anyone know of studies/articles that discuss how to get users to read your
help documentation?

I've written new user guides for various sections of a naval medical website
and am now trying to determine best practice/method to get our user
community to read them!

Although you can't force a user to read the user guide, you can strongly encourage it.

Who do the users call when they need help? That is the person (or group) that needs the training. Then, when a call comes in, the helpers can say, "The answer is in the help file under this catergory___. Let me read it to you..." Hopefully, the users will catch on.

I've been known to open up a help file during a meeting with the users. They often say, "I didn't know that was in there!"

In my opinion, though, the help file is often used for the help author's protection. If it's in the help file, the users can't complain (as much) when something goes wrong. (Remember the "Don't Cook" discussion we had a few weeks ago? I rest my case...


Diane Evans
Technical Writer

Washington State Coordinator, Tombstone Project
http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/washing.html

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