In the quest to offer better forms of user assistance, most experts in the technical communications profession propose technological solutions: using XML, intelligent and adaptive content etc. to present essentially the same type of guidance as has been provided for the past 20 years. We believe there has been a change in the relationship between… Read more »
Category: user assistance
How can you tell if it’s only beginners reading your user guides and online Help?
One way of checking to see if only new users are using the technical documentation for a product is to check if there a correlation between the number of users reading the user documentation and the sales of the product. For example, if the product is following the classic “Bell curve”, and users only need… Read more »
Searching for key words and phrases in training videos – Adventures in media synchronization
One of the limitations of video-based information has been the difficulties for users in finding a particular piece of information in a video. Usually, they have to watch the whole video, or “peck and hunt” to get to the moment containing the information they were searching for. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, HTML5, an… Read more »
Free ebook on applying Lean principles in User Assistance
The Content Development team at Cherryleaf has created a a free eBook that provides help and advice on applying Lean principles to User Assistance. This short ebook explains how the principles of Lean manufacturing can be applied to developing software User Assistance and other forms of technical documentation. Lean is the parent/cousin of Agile Development,… Read more »
Does looking at online Help make users forget?
Over the weekend, Dr Chris Atherton suggested I look at “the doorway effect”. You may well have experienced walking through a doorway and then finding you’d forgotten why you’d stood up in the first place. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have discovered your brain is not to blame for your confusion about what you’re doing in… Read more »