Online help systems: design and implementation
Online help systems: design and implementation
Designing the user interface (2nd ed.): strategies for effective human-computer interaction
Designing the user interface (2nd ed.): strategies for effective human-computer interaction
Designing and writing online documentation (2nd ed.): hypermedia for self-supporting products
Designing and writing online documentation (2nd ed.): hypermedia for self-supporting products
Building user-centered on-line help
Human-computer interaction
Human-computer interaction
Online Help: Design and Evaluation
Online Help: Design and Evaluation
A user interface for online assistance
ICSE '81 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Software engineering
How Useful is On-line Help?: An Observational Study.
OZCHI '98 Proceedings of the Australasian Conference on Computer Human Interaction
A method of Semiotic engineering for the online help systems construction
Proceedings of the Latin American conference on Human-computer interaction
Understanding meta-communication in an inclusive scenario
Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing
Investigating effective ECAs: an experiment on modality and initiative
INTERACT'07 Proceedings of the 11th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part II
Building better help before we build it: user characteristics' effect on library help design
Proceedings of the 31st ACM international conference on Design of communication
Building better help: user characteristics' effect on library help design
Communication Design Quarterly Review
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Designers of on-line help systems have two sets of resources at their disposal: the set of features implemented in currently available systems (which are rapidly becoming a defacto standard), and a set of theoretical principles suggested by researchers in the area. There is no published evidence that either these features or principles have been empirically tested for their suitability from the users' perspective. This paper reports on an empirical study which aimed to assess the usability of a set of on-line help features and principles, in the context of users performing real application tasks. The results reveal that the more general principles associated with understandability are considered the most relevant, and that while users may complain about the design of existing on-line help features, they tend to value them more than features with which they are unfamiliar. A follow-up study showed that only minor changes need to be made to the existing defacto standard for users' concerns to be addressed, without sacrificing the advantages of familiarity. The study addresses questions of context sensitivity, obtrusiveness and the importance of definitions, and highlights the usefulness of questioning emerging defacto standards that have not been based on empirical studies.