Discussion:
Best help example?
(too old to reply)
a***@gmail.com
2008-07-14 14:53:28 UTC
Permalink
I am new in help authoring and I like to learn from examples. Online
help to which applications do you like best as a good example of best
online help? I mean i.e. everyday business desktop applications.
And I have another question. Do you still use Tips of the day? I
noticed that this is less common for new applications.

Thanks in advance.
Rob Chandler [MVP]
2008-07-17 00:39:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by a***@gmail.com
I am new in help authoring and I like to learn from examples. Online
help to which applications do you like best as a good example of best
online help? I mean i.e. everyday business desktop applications.
And I have another question. Do you still use Tips of the day? I
noticed that this is less common for new applications.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Adam
Some MS help is worth being modeled on.

Personally I prefer most of the help content to be
contextual help ... help topics linked to every page. Because
this is the typical way that people use help.

People don't tend to read the help, until they get into trouble,
then they look for the Help button and find whatever
it is they need quickly so they can get back to work again.

For quite a few years Microsoft went off the rails. :-)
The bulk of the help they wrote was procedual help. Now with
products like Office 2007 they have finally (took a long time)
come back to contextual help and most office pages have either
help buttons of Super Tips. If the dialog is simple and clear to
understand (through careful design, embedded help, and hover
tips etc) then help is ommitted or reduced in size.

So I'd suggest -
- Look at Office 2007 help (This is the cutting edge of MS)
- Give each significant page a help button.
- Your type of application may need some overview type documentation.
- Your type of application may need some procedural documentation.

With the realization (though usability testing) that users only read the
help
if they have to, most vendors now realize that UI design is most important.
The designer's job is to put the help writer out of business. The screens
should use clear language, embedded instructions, floating tips, whatever it
takes to make the screens intuitive so that trips to the help are reduced.
A screen should concentrate on one task at a time. Don't overwelm the user.

I did a paper on the MS shift to IUI here
http://helpware.net/aphelp/review1.htm
You may find now that many of the links don't work (but try Googling for
it).

==

As for Tip Of Thr Day. TOTD is an attempt of course to help the
user to learn about the application bit by bit. Typically I think people
may glance at it once or twice then turn it off. I know I do, and I suspect
you do. We have good intentions to read a bit every day but we never do.
We just want to do the task at hand done.

So its a good idea... but I think its very time consuming to actually
implement
and the time would be better spent crafting some good UI and UA.

The other thing to consider is screen cams (using say Camtasia by
TechSmith).
Where I work (at Varian) we make very complex analytical instruments.
The help gets very wordy trying to describe these machines and their
accessories,
so we now do screen videos and that reduces help.
We also use a lot of screen images to help describe things (Usually of
hardware).
We use Snagit (by Techsmith) to add arrows etc to these images.
Its much easier to refer to a diagram, than say explain. Mind you it really
adds
a lot of size to your final CHM, so you need to be careful to trim the
images
to the corect size before adding them to help. But we ship on CDROM so
size is not a problem to us.

But that's us. What we do wont necessarily suite you :-)

Office 2007 - I think they the do a lot of things right now. We always like
to add a Gettng Started section (for orientation to the product). You also
need a support page, and contacts page.

Cheers
Rob
a***@gmail.com
2008-07-17 02:19:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
Hi Adam
Some MS help is worth being modeled on.
Personally I prefer most of the help content to be
contextual help ... help topics linked to every page. Because
this is the typical way that people use help.
People don't tend to read the help, until they get into trouble,
then they look for the Help button and find whatever
it is they need quickly so they can get back to work again.
[...]

Well I do not really like Office 2007 help. One reason is that I must
go through 2-3 levels to find a topic. One is enough. Personally I
suspect more introductory model. Of course not forgetting to classic
online describing every button and every window. It is never clear
what may be hard for user. But when I just want to do some advanced, I
need help which read my mind, not titles that names features I can’t
even imagine.
I do not like procedural help too. Of course it’s good to introduce
beginners how to do a task, but not more. Speaking about procedures I
saw Camtasia but Captivate may be better. I did tested new version of
Captivate.
You may be right, TOTD probably aren’t good idea nowadays. But this is
software which user should run when start a business day, not to do
one task. So 40% for TOTD now : )
Our product is well designed but has a lot of features. So what I need
is describing what user can do including advanced and not obvious
things. I experimented few times and started writing from beginning
because I was not satisfied. Fortunately I didn’t lost a lot o work.
Currently I starter a question-convention. Every single topic and
section (section contains few sentences, not more) has a question as
title. It’s because I do not want users to get sleep. Of course this
may be irritating at some point but professional and cool tone can
minimalist the risk. Well, it’s not obvious that I change my mind
again : )
PS. Of course I am not writing my help in English ;-)

Best regards,
Adam
a***@gmail.com
2008-07-17 03:18:07 UTC
Permalink
On 17 Lip, 02:39, "Rob Chandler [MVP]" <***@nospam.helpware.net>
wrote:
[...]
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
For quite a few years Microsoft went off the rails. :-)
The bulk of the help they wrote was procedual help. Now with
products like Office 2007 they have finally (took a long time)
come back to contextual help and most office pages have either
help buttons of Super Tips. If the dialog is simple and clear to
understand (through careful design, embedded help, and hover
tips etc) then help is ommitted or reduced in size.
[...]

You are right. I looked at Office 2007 help more carefully and I think
this is the easiest model to find an information.

Best regards,
Adame
Rob Chandler [MVP]
2008-07-18 13:50:50 UTC
Permalink
Great to read your comments Adam.

I must admit, Office 2007 UI is so clear that I probably have
not used their help much :-) But I have poked around and I like that they
use context help again (F1 & Help buttons), and I liked the viewer and that
it had a reasonable toc.
Of course we lost the Index :-(

Another place where I think MS went off the rails is that
they became seduced by Google and Web Search engines.
With Office 2003? I think it was, they thought they would just
ship a database of help and a search box. Horrible. Could not find
anything. Pages didn't have help buttons so I couldn't get help
where I was currently working :-(

Anyway in the end if you can pass it to some good customers (internal and
external) I'm sure they will have good feedback for you.

Cheers
Rob
Post by a***@gmail.com
[...]
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
For quite a few years Microsoft went off the rails. :-)
The bulk of the help they wrote was procedual help. Now with
products like Office 2007 they have finally (took a long time)
come back to contextual help and most office pages have either
help buttons of Super Tips. If the dialog is simple and clear to
understand (through careful design, embedded help, and hover
tips etc) then help is ommitted or reduced in size.
[...]
You are right. I looked at Office 2007 help more carefully and I think
this is the easiest model to find an information.
Best regards,
Adame
David Webber
2008-07-20 08:47:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by a***@gmail.com
I am new in help authoring and I like to learn from examples. Online
help to which applications do you like best as a good example of best
online help? I mean i.e. everyday business desktop applications.
And I have another question. Do you still use Tips of the day? I
noticed that this is less common for new applications.
I hesitated about this reply but here goes anyway...

If you can read music (even if not), then you might like to look at the
evaluation copy of my music notation software MOZART, from
http://www.mozart.co.uk. Don't worry - I won't try to sell you one :-)

I know it isn't perfect and have ideas to improve it, but its help system
*has* been praised quite a lot in reviews, and it may give you an idea of
what can be done by a small firm. And you'll be able to see what you like
and what you don't. It has context-help access from every command and
every dialogue box, and the help is also arranged so people can read it like
a book from beginning to end if they want. In some ways (eg the
question-mark+arrow cursor getting help from menus, toolbars, and shortcuts)
it is a bit old fashioned, but as Rob says, Microsoft have been busily
fixing things which weren't broken as their applications have developed.
Some of the old ideas were very good.

I still have a TOTD but, like you, I'm questioning whether it is useful. I
haven't actually added any tips for a couple of versions now, and absolutely
no-one seems to have noticed!

The real down side of my help system is that it is far to big to be
translated (affordably) into other languages. That is a problem I'm still
thinking about.

Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/support see
http://www.mozart.co.uk/mozartists/mailinglist.htm
Rob Chandler [MVP]
2008-07-21 01:20:59 UTC
Permalink
Thanks David for the comments. It is interesting where Microsoft have gone.

Hard to know what to do about help these days. There are so many options.
Like the application I suspect that one size does not fit all.

As you say, if you make it too big then translation costs blow out (and some
translators charge thousands of $). If you make it too light then there are
going
to be a % of people who are not very computer litterate and struggle.
(Notice that MS put all there help "online" if possible so they can monitor
usage
and feedback, and update the help at their discression).

If you can't print like a book, then there are going to be a proportion of
users
who are also unhappy.

I like the whole idea of an community Wiki that shows at the bottom of
each help page. So if there is not enough help, you or your customers can
write annotations which are kept online so everyone can benefi.
MS are doing this in there MSDN Library Online
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/library/microsoft.sharepoint.splist.aspx
Maybe one day you could use Google APIs to store Annotations in say
a Google Group.

I like the idea of a large single overview help topic (or PDF) that can be
easily printed
and read on the train.

I like using screen videos for describing very complex things to reduce the
amount of text
written and imprive clarity. Many of our non-Eng customers find they can
muddle though
by watching our videos. Given that YouTube allow you to upload an unlimited
number
of 10 min videos, everyone can now do it.

Rob
Post by David Webber
Post by a***@gmail.com
I am new in help authoring and I like to learn from examples. Online
help to which applications do you like best as a good example of best
online help? I mean i.e. everyday business desktop applications.
And I have another question. Do you still use Tips of the day? I
noticed that this is less common for new applications.
I hesitated about this reply but here goes anyway...
If you can read music (even if not), then you might like to look at the
evaluation copy of my music notation software MOZART, from
http://www.mozart.co.uk. Don't worry - I won't try to sell you one :-)
I know it isn't perfect and have ideas to improve it, but its help system
*has* been praised quite a lot in reviews, and it may give you an idea of
what can be done by a small firm. And you'll be able to see what you
like and what you don't. It has context-help access from every command
and every dialogue box, and the help is also arranged so people can read
it like a book from beginning to end if they want. In some ways (eg the
question-mark+arrow cursor getting help from menus, toolbars, and
shortcuts) it is a bit old fashioned, but as Rob says, Microsoft have been
busily fixing things which weren't broken as their applications have
developed. Some of the old ideas were very good.
I still have a TOTD but, like you, I'm questioning whether it is useful.
I haven't actually added any tips for a couple of versions now, and
absolutely no-one seems to have noticed!
The real down side of my help system is that it is far to big to be
translated (affordably) into other languages. That is a problem I'm
still thinking about.
Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/support see
http://www.mozart.co.uk/mozartists/mailinglist.htm
David Webber
2008-07-21 07:37:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
Hard to know what to do about help these days. There are so many options.
Like the application I suspect that one size does not fit all.
I think you may well be right there.
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
As you say, if you make it too big then translation costs blow out (and some
translators charge thousands of $). If you make it too light then there
are going
to be a % of people who are not very computer litterate and struggle.
(Notice that MS put all there help "online" if possible so they can
monitor usage
and feedback, and update the help at their discression).
I have been "vaguely thinking" of how I could make use of the internet for
help. For many years I firmly clung to the idea that many people who use my
program were not on line, and therefore stayed away from having too many
URLs to click on. But I think that one is now no longer an issue. :-)

The translation issue renewed itself in my mind when a French user told me
he could manage fine, but his kids were struggling. Since then I got
volunteers to help translate the menus and dialogues and the program now has
plug in modules - resource-only DLLs - to put those into whatever language
anyone wants to help me with! But the help system is far too vast.
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
If you can't print like a book, then there are going to be a proportion
of users
who are also unhappy.
Yes - it has been mentioned :-) My solution is to put out a second
document - a PDF file as a "tutorial manual". This has a narrower scope
but is a step-by-step procedural guide which covers the most fundamental
aspects of the program at greater length. Some people find it useful; many
don't.
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
I like the whole idea of an community Wiki that shows at the bottom of
each help page. So if there is not enough help, you or your customers can
write annotations which are kept online so everyone can benefi.
MS are doing this in there MSDN Library Online
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/library/microsoft.sharepoint.splist.aspx
Maybe one day you could use Google APIs to store Annotations in say
a Google Group.
That sounds like a very nteresting idea indeed. I already have a thriving
chat group/mailing list on Yahoo Groups where mutual help is available on an
ad-hoc basis. But I'm sure many might be interested in such a thing. You
have got me thinking - always a good thing :-)
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
I like the idea of a large single overview help topic (or PDF) that can be
easily printed and read on the train.
I like using screen videos for describing very complex things to reduce
the amount of text
written and imprive clarity. Many of our non-Eng customers find they can
muddle though
by watching our videos. Given that YouTube allow you to upload an
unlimited number
of 10 min videos, everyone can now do it.
This is a new idea for me - sometimes they are difficult to keep up with.
One of my users has recently come up with the idea of producing a video
tutorial (or series of them) and selling as a third-party add on (hopefully
at not too great cost)! He knows I have my hands full with the program
itself. But I'll give him all the help he needs (and warn him not to
expect untold riches!)

While I'm here I'd like to say thank you for your FAR system which I
invested in a while back. My help system was originally WinHelp in the
win3.1 days, but I converted it with RoboHelp to HTML help a long time ago.
(The HTML it wrote is pretty dire in some ways but it works, and I tidy it
up when I trip over it.) I found the RoboHelp HTML part went on working
long after the version of WORD needed by the Robohelp WinHelp editor was
history. But then nearly two years ago I got a Vista machine, and RoboHelp
did not like it one little bit! What may be the same product, but updated,
was on sale by another company, but I could find no upgrade path from my now
rather old version. And the cost was therefore rather staggering. I'm
happy editing HTML with FrontPage 2003, but I needed to manage the help
system with its contents and index. Your FAR product saved the day -
exactly what I needed! and at an affordable price. So a big thank-you
from me!

Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/support see
http://www.mozart.co.uk/mozartists/mailinglist.htm
Rob Chandler [MVP]
2008-07-24 04:24:27 UTC
Permalink
<snip>
Post by David Webber
Post by Rob Chandler [MVP]
I like the whole idea of an community Wiki that shows at the bottom of
each help page. So if there is not enough help, you or your customers can
write annotations which are kept online so everyone can benefi.
MS are doing this in there MSDN Library Online
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/library/microsoft.sharepoint.splist.aspx
Maybe one day you could use Google APIs to store Annotations in say
a Google Group.
That sounds like a very nteresting idea indeed. I already have a
thriving chat group/mailing list on Yahoo Groups where mutual help is
available on an ad-hoc basis. But I'm sure many might be interested in
such a thing. You have got me thinking - always a good thing :-)
Maybe we could brainstorm this outside the group.

(below) Cool always nice to get a thumbs up. We have many ex-RoboHelpers
who have found that something inbetween like FAR + a favorite HTML editor is
all they really need. The other thing I find with RH is their ActiveX
control and
extras really slow down the help. While the native CHM opens very fast,
which for context help is exactly what your customers want.

Cheers
Rob
http://helpware.net/FAR/

<snip>
Post by David Webber
While I'm here I'd like to say thank you for your FAR system which I
invested in a while back. My help system was originally WinHelp in the
win3.1 days, but I converted it with RoboHelp to HTML help a long time
ago. (The HTML it wrote is pretty dire in some ways but it works, and I
tidy it up when I trip over it.) I found the RoboHelp HTML part went on
working long after the version of WORD needed by the Robohelp WinHelp
editor was history. But then nearly two years ago I got a Vista machine,
and RoboHelp did not like it one little bit! What may be the same
product, but updated, was on sale by another company, but I could find no
upgrade path from my now rather old version. And the cost was therefore
rather staggering. I'm happy editing HTML with FrontPage 2003, but I
needed to manage the help system with its contents and index. Your FAR
product saved the day - exactly what I needed! and at an affordable
price. So a big thank-you from me!
Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/support see
http://www.mozart.co.uk/mozartists/mailinglist.htm
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