[ID Discuss] Access points for context sensitive help

[Pabini Gabriel-Petit]

Hello Alysander

You made a lot of good points, but I disagree with you about one thing. You
wrote:

> For example: if a user performs a complex operation that involves a
> dialog box which they haven't used before, the appropriate guide could
open itself.

In my view, a help system should never open itself. Remember how obnoxious
everyone thinks Clippie is. One should always avoid wresting control from
users or interrupting their tasks. I do think it's very helpful to provide a
Help button in a dialog box to display context-sensitive help. Often,
pedagogical information is actually necessary to comprehend the options in a
dialog box, but it's rarely provided. Nor is task-oriented help usually
provided in context. Typically, brief reference help is all that is offered.
For a highly technical operation, that's not enough. It's unbelievable the
level of knowledge help systems sometimes assume.

What exactly did you mean by "ideally non-command\contextual"?

> The most obvious place for "help" is on the page, with
> whatever features\functions they apply to. But this
> can get in the way.  The problem with a help menu
> (especially in flash) is that it's too out of the way.
>  Users have to go out of *their* way to use them.
> That's if they notice them in the first place.

A few other possibilities are placing any kind of help in a sidebar--either
permanently or displaying different information when a user points to
particular features on a Web page (a remote rollover)--or providing
reference help in large ToolTips. Of course, in the latter two cases, users
must learn how to use the context-sensitive help, so there must be some sort
of visible affordance for the help system.

Pabini
________________________________________

Pabini Gabriel-Petit
Principal & User Experience Architect
Spirit Softworks
www.spiritsoftworks.com