Re: Other Help metaphors - long?

["Michael West" <mike -dot- west -at- oz -dot- quest -dot- com>]

"Jim Shaeffer" <jims -at- spsi -dot- com> wrote in message news:117664 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 


> I believe, however, that when we sit down to develop user assistance
> we tend to choose our approach based on some sort of metaphor or model.
> We should be aware of that choice and open to other possibilities.
> Am I a writer? A teacher? A storyboarder? A librarian?
> The glib answer is to say that we have to be all of them, but it seems
> to me that one of them will dominate in our work.



No-one, I think, could improve on Geoff's answer, but
I'd add here that maybe "What am I?" is not the most
important design question. The most important questions
have to with audience profile and the tasks to be accomplished.

Introducing new visual metaphors is best done very
carefully, with lots of expert input and thorough usability
testing with naive subjects.

--
Michael West









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