Re: Research on software help //Great feedback here re this topic!

Yes - thanks to everyone for your replies.
Cate

On Apr 9, 2011, at 1:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:

> Just wanted to say that this is some great info and feedback people  
> are posting here.
> ljr
>
>
>
> On Apr 9, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Fred M Jacobson wrote:
>
>> Cate-
>>
>> Meghan mentions that conceptual material is often provided as  
>> documents
>> instead of online help, but my experience (no "data" here) with  
>> users (and
>> that of other tech writers I've worked with) is that users are task- 
>> oriented
>> and many don't read conceptual material in preparation for using the
>> software. That argues for linking to the conceptual material in the  
>> help.
>>
>> Tech writers now classify topics as concept, task, or reference. As  
>> others
>> have pointed out, the requirement for extensive task documentation  
>> can be a
>> sign of an ineffective user interface. But when the software is a  
>> "toolbox"
>> - like many enterprise products I have documented - it is difficult  
>> or
>> impossible for the interface to represent all the high-level tasks  
>> that
>> satisfy user goals. Online help might be a good choice for these
>> "meta-procedures," or at least the most common or instructive.
>>
>> You asked about "developers." I'm not sure you if you are asking  
>> about
>> documentation for developers, but here's a perspective on that:
>> Documentation for developers often includes many reference topics.  
>> Most
>> developers (again, my experience, but no data) expect and use  
>> effectively
>> online access to this material. For example, a programmer using a  
>> software
>> development environment expects to access information about a  
>> library easily
>> from the environment.
>>
>> -Fred
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected] 
>> ] On
>> Behalf Of Meghan Ede
>> Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 1:16 PM
>> To: Cate de Heer; Greg Austin
>> Cc: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [BayCHI Discussions] Research on software help
>>
>> From my personal experience running usability studies:
>>
>> - people get really pissed off when "help" simply rephrases the  
>> interface
>> e.g. "under the file menu, you will find..."
>>
>> - people are usually looking for "how" to do something, rather than  
>> an
>> explanation of the UI, especially tips, tricks or trouble-shooting
>>
>> - it takes only a few (usually only one) bad experience with a  
>> piece of
>> unhelpful help content for the user to stop using help altogether  
>> on that
>> product
>>
>> - more technical users are, in my experience, more likely to  
>> persist with a
>> help system or online documentation than consumers, because often  
>> the tasks
>> they are performing require specific and correct actions and errors  
>> can have
>> huge impacts; they also annotate and copy over good, useful help  
>> content -
>> to an internal resource, such as internal wiki
>>
>> - a great way to get feedback about your online help/documentation  
>> is to
>> include a brief online survey incorporated into the help/doc  
>> system, along
>> the lines of:
>>
>>  1. How helpful was this topic (then have a rating scale)
>>  2. What were you looking for? (open-ended)
>>
>> This feedback helps to inform you what parts of the content are being
>> looked at, relative ratings and match between content and needs.  
>> The Sun
>> website has been using this for years to refine their content
>>
>> I have found perusing forums to be a good way to assess how helpful a
>> product's documentation is - if many users are asking questions that
>> could/should have been explained in the help - likely they are not  
>> using the
>> online help or it doesn't provide the answers they need
>>
>> - conceptual information is more likely to be printed and shared (and
>> therefore formatted to make this easy), while step-by-step  
>> information is
>> more likely to be used "on-the-spot" and has less need for easy  
>> export
>> design
>>
>> Meghan
>>
>>
>> --- On Fri, 4/8/11, Greg Austin <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> From: Greg Austin <[email protected]>
>>> Subject: Re: [BayCHI Discussions] Research on software help
>>> To: "Cate de Heer" <[email protected]>
>>> Cc: [email protected]
>>> Date: Friday, April 8, 2011, 5:19 AM
>>> When Help is preconceived, then
>>> usability is not. If one needs to rely on Help to explain
>>> the communication that is intended by the interface, then
>>> that interface is wrong, since the functionality is not as
>>> the target audience expects it. Therefore, users have not
>>> been studied well enough.
>>> On Apr 7, 2011, at 10:58 PM, Cate de Heer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I'm interested in any data on how users (end users and
>>> developers) access and use help documentation. In
>>> particular, I'm interested in the following:
>>>>
>>>> _ Expectations or results when users encounter help
>>> documentation on the developer's website or via a search
>>> engine (I'm familiar with studies from 10 or more years ago
>>> indicating low user expectations from the documentation in a
>>> software help menu)
>>>>
>>>> _ The success of different approaches to information
>>> architecture for online documentation; for example,
>>> self-contained, one-page topics versus the longstanding
>>> "help manual" model with several levels of hierarchy
>>>>
>>>> _ Any differences between approaches that work well
>>> for end users specifically or for developers
>>>>
>>>> Cate
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>>> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>>> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>>>> The real technologybehind all of our other
>>> technologiesis language.
>>>> Norman Fischer
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>> Greg Austin
>>> [email protected]
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