{"id":459,"date":"2013-01-04T10:56:32","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T18:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/?p=459"},"modified":"2013-03-15T14:44:24","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T21:44:24","slug":"avoiding-the-user-guide-or-help-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/avoiding-the-user-guide-or-help-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding the &#8220;user guide&#8221; or &#8220;help system&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>A primer on user assistance for startups.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I think two design choices can help a user learn new software without requiring her to read &#8220;documents.&#8221; They are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Self-explanatory user interfaces.<\/li>\n<li>Video demonstrations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Self-Explanatory UI<\/h3>\n<p>I see many software interfaces that a few minor tweaks could make more self-explanatory. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Carefully written labels. They might have short primary text and longer secondary text, visually distinguished from primary.<\/li>\n<li>Tool tips that pop up.<\/li>\n<li>Visual organization that implies relationships between elements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, it can take more than tweaks to fix a user experience that doesn&#8217;t match the user&#8217;s intuition about the tasks.<\/p>\n<h3>Introductory Videos<\/h3>\n<p>And I believe most users will prefer to &#8220;get started&#8221; with a screencast video rather than text to read. Of course, keeping the video under 3 minutes will make it more likely to be viewed. Therefore most software would require a series of videos. Planning the content for the series will be non-trivial.<\/p>\n<h3>Nonetheless&#8230;<\/h3>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think well-assisted software can completely avoid documents (unless it&#8217;s small and single-purpose). There&#8217;s still a place for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reference materials (as distinguished from tutorial materials).<\/li>\n<li>Glossaries (if the subject matter is technically complex).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How well have you been assisted to learn new software lately?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A primer on user assistance for startups. I think two design choices can help a user learn new software without requiring her to read &#8220;documents.&#8221; They are: Self-explanatory user interfaces. Video demonstrations. Self-Explanatory UI I see many software interfaces that a few minor tweaks could make more self-explanatory. For example: Carefully written labels. They might [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1079,"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/1079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explanagraphics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}