Exploring Online Helps |
| Online helps may be one of those areas you've never really paid much attention to. You may have used helps from time to time, but you may not even associate what you used with the term online helps. Just to make sure we all know what we are talking about, online helps are the helps that pop up in a separate window when you click on Help in most Windows applications. Sometimes, helps are represented by an icon, such as a yellow question mark, a purple book, or a script-style lowercase letter i.
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you don't have to be in the related application
| A help system is simply the compiled help file that you see when you click on a help button or icon. Take a look at the screen capture of the contents of a folder from Windows Explorer to the left. The yellow question-mark and the purple book icons are the help systems.
Go into Windows Explorer and find three online helps by looking for the yellow question-mark icons or the purple book icons. But don't just grab at the first three you find. Be choosy: find three that are very different from each other. |
Once you've found three online-help systems, analyze them for the following:
- Whether a TOC pane is used
- Whether the TOC expands and contracts when you click on individual items
- What type of information is provided: tutorial, guide, troubleshooting, reference
- Whether popup windows are used
- Whether the inline style of popups are used
- Whether headings for tasks use task-oriented phrasing
- Whether numbered lists are used for sequential steps
- Whether spot links (links right in the text) used?
- Whether generic links (back, home, next) used?
- Whether related-information links are provided at the bottom of topics
- How information is organized: sequential, top-down menu access, search-only, random
- Whether a glossary is available
- Whether an index is available
- Whether any links point within topics, rather than always to the very top