Help!

Date

1990

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

The Public-Access Computer Systems Review

Abstract

Your patron access systems probably have help screens available at the touch of a key. There are dozens--maybe even hundreds--of carefully-worded context-sensitive messages to help the frustrated patron. Some systems even incorporate the patron's problematic command into the help text. How often do those help screens get used? If you're typical, not very often. From what I've heard informally, systems with logging facilities show that help functions are so rarely used that, if they were indexes, they would be prime candidates for removal from the system. Not only in patron access systems, but in most interactive software, even the most superbly-crafted help facilities go unused--even while they could solve most problems that users face.

Description

Keywords

Citation

Crawford, Walt. "Help!." Public Access-Computer Systems Review 1, no. 2. (1990): 67-70.