Projects/Usability/HIG/HelpSystem: Difference between revisions

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    Revision as of 14:31, 9 July 2013


    Purpose

    The help system should be used as a secondary mechanism to support users’ complete and better understanding of tasks — the primary mechanism should be the user interface itself. Users consult the help system only if they can't accomplish a task with the UI.

    Examples

    Guidelines

    Try to make Help unnecessary in the first place:

    • Make common tasks easy to discover and perform.
    • Provide clear main instructions as well as concise control labels that are goal- and task-oriented.
    • Provide supplemental instructions and explanations where needed.
    • Avoid problems by using controls constrained to valid choices, providing suitable default values, handling all input formats, and preventing errors.
    • Write error messages that provide a clear solution or action for the user to take.
    • Usually, the help system is activated by F1 respectively Ctrl+F1 for context sensitive information and via menu.

    Implementation