Navigation panes in help systems

["Leo Paoletti" <LPaoletti -at- webplan -dot- com>]

Hello all,
I'm trying to better understand how people use the navigation panes in
help systems (WinHelp, MS HTML, HTML, and so on). For the purposes of
this discussion, the navigation pane consists of a TOC, Index, and
Search (or Find) pane.

I've heard numbers like 80% of users who go to the navigation pane use
the Index first to search for information. The remaining 20% is split on
the TOC or Search. These numbers are based on North American users. I
also understand European users are similar but may use the TOC a little
more.

Does anyone know of studies or publications that discuss this issue more
fully? I'm also interested in how Japanese or Chinese users (in their
local language) use the navigation pane. Are Asian users more likely to
use the Search pane instead of the Index because their alphabets are
different than the Latin-based 26-character alphabet? 

I can seem to find these types of studies on the Web.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Leo
 

Leo Paoletti
lpaoletti -at- webplan -dot- com
http://www.webplan.com
Webplan Inc.


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