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The Case for Help
In recent years there has been a shift away from printed documentation. The occasional weighty manual (like the book you're holding now) is still required for learning advanced tools, but the average piece of office productivity or business software no longer assumes the user is willing to perform any additional reading. Instead, these programs are heavily dependent on natural, instinctive interfaces, and use online Help to patch the gaps and answer the occasional user question.Online Help doesn't have to take the form of a second-rate user manual, however. The advantages of online Help are remarkable:
Increased control. With a little effort, you can determine exactly what information users see when they click the F1 key. With a printed book, users might look for information using the index, table of contents, or even a third-party "…For Dummies" guide, and you have no way of knowing what they will find.
Rich media. With online Help you can use as many pictures as you want, in any combination, and even include sounds, movies, and animated demonstrations.
Search tools and context-sensitivity. Help systems can automate most of the drudgery associated with finding information. They can look for keywords with a full-text search (rather than relying on a human-compiled index), and programs can use context-sensitivity to make sure users see the appropriate topic immediately.
All help standards provide these advantages in one form or another. In the next section, you explore the Help landscape.
