RE: paper documentation vs. online help

Subject: RE: paper documentation vs. online help
From: quills -at- airmail -dot- net
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 08:35:53 -0500


At 11:52 PM -0500 4/17/02, Mike Starr wrote:

Scott...

My perspective is that if I've got the content, why should I leave it out
of the online help system?? The pixels don't cost us anything, I'm going to
write the stuff anyway... what do I gain by leaving it out?? Nothing. What
do I gain by leaving it in?? Customer satisfaction.

Sure they're different media but so what?? Does that mean that the content
loses its validity?? I don't think so. Like I said in my previous post, I
happen to believe that most users will only look in one place for the
information they want. Why not take every possible opportunity to give it
to them? I don't believe in being stingy with information a customer might
want.

Mike

OK, Make the online documentation XML based. Its intent is still not the same as Help. What is the intent of Help?

To help the user with questions about immediate operational usage, the what is answered.

Anything else is not Help. It is online documentation. Online documentation is not Help. I refer you to the man pages of a Unix system. That is online documentation. Yeah, it's a poor example, but because the intent there is complete documentation of how the command works, which to the programmers who wrote them was a Help system, it is still not Help. Help should answer your question within a few paragraphs at the most. User documentation will often include screen captures of windows. A Help screen is not the best place to display that, rather a fragment is more useful.

I have no patience with Help systems that take up more screen realestate than the program, that give me more than I want to know at that particular time.

This is a philosophical problem that will not be solved right here. Many of us have preferences that are not going to be changed by our arguments.

Scott

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RE: paper documentation vs. online help: From: Mike Starr

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