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Subject:Find/Index vs. "natural language" tools From:"Martin, Chuck" <chuckm -at- EVOLVESOFTWARE -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 17 Nov 1997 16:48:49 -0800
Having failed once again to find the answer to my software question
using the Microsoft Office 97 Help, I have to wonder what is better for
finding information online, an index or a "natural language" tool. For
the uninitiated, the standard Help mechanism for MS office applications
now presents you with an insipid animated icon that purports to be able
to find the answer to your problem when you type in a "natural language"
question, such as "How do I create bulleted text?"
It occurs to me that a book has no "natural language" tool, so we have
always had to carefully craft our access mechanisms to make information
easy to find. One of the primary access mechanisms: the index. I equate
a Help systems keyword index to a book's index and consider them equal
in importance. Apparently, Microsoft does not; time after time I've
searched the keyword index (the Find tab) in Office Help files for terms
that will take me to the topic I want. More often than not, the "natural
language" tool doesn't work either.
However, for the amount of topics that must be in the Office Help
system, the number of keywords seems woefully inadequate. It appears
that MS gave the index short shrift in favor of the "natural language"
tool. Here's my question: with a well crafted index, why the need for a
"natural language" tool? Do users not equate the Find tab (the keyword
list) of a Help system with the Index of a book? Do developers spend
less time seeing that an online Help system is indexed than they would a
book with the same material? Does typing a question in a "natural
language" tool followed by reading through the list of answers and
selecting one take more or less time that accessing an index window and
scrolling to a useful keyword, then possibly reading from a list of
topics and selecting one?
I'd be interested in what people have to say.
--
"You don't look American."
"Everyone looks American, because Americans are from everywhere."
- Doonesbury
Chuck Martin, Technical Writer
Evolve Software | Personal
chuckm -at- evolvesoftware -dot- com | writer -at- grin -dot- net
www.evolvesoftware.com | www.grin.net/~writer
