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Subject:Re: Why do help? From:"Less is more." <yvonne -at- VENUS -dot- SMARTSTAR -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 20 Sep 1994 08:40:20 -0700
Jonathan Price (JonPrice -at- AOL -dot- COM) asks:
> First: why bother doing help at all? What reasons do you think are valid,
> and which seem spurious?
Valid Reasons to Do Online Help
For some products, multiple users share a single printed doc set -- and often
have trouble finding the book they want.
Printed documents aren't context-sensitive.
It's tough to do a full-text search on a printed document.
Makes it easier for users to navigate heavily inter-related information.
Some audiences may use online help in situations where they wouldn't have
gone to the effort of lifting the manual.
More advanced help systems can facilitate performing the desired action while
getting help.
You may be able to afford updating and distributing it more often. This can be
important for products that change frequently. (Getting people to insert all
those update pages can be difficult.)
May be easier for handicapped users to access.
Spurious Reasons to Do Online Help
Everyone else is doing it.
To save money on printing. (Spurious at least from the user's point of view,
perhaps not from you company's.)
