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In article <TECHWR-L%94092310352901 -at- VM1 -dot- UCC -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>,
mpriestley -at- vnet -dot- ibm -dot- com says:
>One of the useful possibilities here is a more responsive and interactive
>help system. Rather than a reference manual that sits on your desk in
>its original wrapping (or in its original folder online), you get something
>like Mac's bubble help, and perhaps a monitoring system that looks for
>"trouble signs" (like repetitive unproductive command sequences - eg
>scanning and closing menus over and over again - or the same info message
>coming up three times in a row, or...), and then displays/updates a monitor
>window with a helpful hint/explanation, and a list of possible tasks they
>are attempting. Then, if they select a task, the help system can walk
>them through it, step by step, monitoring them for mistakes and correcting
>them gently (with an explanation geared towards the misunderstanding that
>might generate that mistake).
Excel 5.0/Windows has something like this. If you turn on this feature,
whenever you could have performed a shortcut to use a feature, you get a
message with the shortcut described.
Also, on a fair number of Windows program F1 (unlike using the help menu)
will access help for the task at hand. Of course, usefulness depends on what
the program determines to be the task at hand...
