Thursday, February 28, 2008

With A Little Help

The world’s best software won’t do your company any good unless the users know how to use it.  They may be able to post an invoice or run a report, but can they use the system effectively?  Usually the answer is that many of them can’t. Even if they were initially trained on the system they have not retained all of the little nuances of the system; and, if there have been upgrades to the system, they most likely haven’t had an opportunity to learn the new features.

When I questioned software providers about documentation, their universal response was, “It’s in the Help text.” I can think of only a few software packages with meaningful Help text.  How many times have you clicked Help to determine the purpose of a field only to find an ambiguous answer?  A typical example is when the definition of a field labeled, “Subject Discount Allowance” is defined in the Help text as, “subject discount allowance.” Big help!

Writing documentation is difficult, probably harder to do than writing program code.  At least there is defined logic in program code.  Nearly every programmer and analyst detests writing documentation. 

Good documentation specialists are harder to find than an honest politician!  They need to be able to understand the technical staff’s methods of communicating, and at the same time be able to convert that knowledge to documentation that can be understood by the rest of the human race! 

Additionally, the documentation writer needs to be consistent in the structure and presentation of the Help text.  It’s a very difficult job, one that is often overlooked, under-budgeted, or ignored, but is an essential element of good software.

Get with it!  Give us meaningful Help!