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Creating one help system for user groups with different access rights?

Subject: Creating one help system for user groups with different access rights?
From: Jean Hollis Weber <jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 14:35:52 +1000


Geoff Hart claims,

If your help is context-sensitive (and it should be), workers for a company
who didn't buy feature X will never ever see the help for feature X. Don't
forget, they only consult the help when they experience a problem (e.g.,
want to learn how to do something), and if they're not using a feature,
they'll never look for help on that feature.

Geoff, this may be true for some users, but it's definitely not true for all of them, and it's especially not true if the help file is the only available documentation. Case in point: I am trying to figure out how a particular does something (or even if it can do that). I don't know where to start. I'm not at a dialog box, wondering how to use it. So I have to look in the index or the ToC to see if I can find a clue on where to start. I don't think this is an unusual scenario at all.

So people _will_ find info on features they haven't got. Whether this is good or not is a matter of opinion and of marketing strategy, as you noted.

Regards, Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com
The Technical Editors' Eyrie http://www.jeanweber.com/


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