RE: Online Help Tool - Decision

["Joe Malin" <jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com>]

Dear Mary,

Thank you for responding. I'd like to clarify my statement. My note
could be read to mean that online help contains *only* context-sensitive
help. I don't believe that. Online help definitely does contain all
categories of information. I have written context-sensitive help,
reference help, procedural help, and conceptual help.

Online help also has a table of contents. I don't think that most
readers use the table of contents to find a particular piece of help. I
don't myself, and my guess is that most online users don't. I think that
this is why Microsoft used the paperclip assistant and now uses the help
"search" window as their main entry into online help.

Joe

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-216553 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-216553 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
mearro -at- msn -dot- com
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 12:51 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Online Help Tool - Decision


Joe:

There are quite a few help systems that provide context sensitive topics
as well as a table of contents that includes "book-like" or general info
topics. In fact, the majority of the help systems I've produced (and
many that I've used) have fit this description.


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