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Subject:Re: Cost Savings and Online Help From:hfi -at- INS -dot- INFONET -dot- NET Date:Fri, 21 Oct 1994 02:40:31 GMT
Elna Tymes seeks...
actual savings because of the presence of online Help systems, or online
references.
I'm aware of a propriatary study run at a bank in Canada. In short,
when users pressed F1-Help, more often then not it was because
they missed when trying for F2!
Help, Documenation, and training are hardly good investments.
They are despiration measures (old saying... "the documentation is
nothing but a compilation of the failures of the interface designer).
However, there are situations where it does make sense. Jack
Tananbaum wrote a great Bell Technical Memo on "Means to Achive
Performance Tradeoff". He identified critiera for when doucmentation,
training, OR performance aides (e.g. help) were acutally useful.
Great work, we use it regularly.
Dr. Eric M. Schaffer
Voice of Human Factors International, Inc.
