Designing Effective Online Help

Introduction

Users don't read online help the same way they read printed manuals. When users go to online help they usually have a specific question they want an immediate answer to. They want that answer fast. If they can't find the information they want after a few tries, they'll conclude that the online help is useless, and turn to tech support for answers that are covered in your help system. This article looks into some things you can do to make effective online help and prevent user frustration.

This article covers the following topics:

Getting to the point
Speaking plainly
Writing short sentences
Creating short topics
Linking
Writing with internationalization in mind
Wrap up

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