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The identity of Help

  • 아티클

Today, I'm thinking about product Help, DPM's in particular. Mostly I'm thinking about the questions I want to find answers for next week (because I'm taking the rest of this week off).

For instance, what was our guideline in DPM 2006 for deciding what would go in Help and what would be documented in other forms? DPM was well into development when I joined the team last winter so I missed out on the content planning phase.

What guidelines do other products use for selecting Help content?

What research has been done around usability and customer preferences?

My manager probably has most, if not all, of those answers, and I'm not going to try to reinvent the wheel. Still, it's a fun mental exercise: how would you define Help? Would you include everything that could possibly be known about a product, and if so, how would you make it all discoverable? If you would focus it, what would be your criteria for inclusion?

Those are only pseudo-hypotheticals...if you'd like to actually offer your opinions, feel free to send them to dpmfdbk@microsoft.com.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2005
    Or, better yet, post a comment in this blog! :)