[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Help system

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Tuesday 09 July 2013 14:32:17 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> User Assistance: Help system
> * Support the user by an elaborated interface or per [[help system]].
> 
> http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/HIG/HelpSystem
> 
> == Purpose ==
> The help system should be used as a secondary mechanism to support users’
> complete and better understanding of tasks — the primary mechanism should
> be the user interface itself. Users consult the help system only if they
> can't accomplish a task with the UI.
> 
> == Examples ==
> 
> == Guidelines ==
> Try to make Help unnecessary in the first place:
> * Make common tasks easy to discover and perform.
> * Provide clear main instructions as well as concise control labels that are
> goal- and task-oriented. * Provide supplemental instructions and
> explanations where needed. * Avoid problems by using controls constrained
> to valid choices, providing suitable default values, handling all input
> formats, and preventing errors. * Write error messages that provide a clear
> solution or action for the user to take. * Usually, the help system is
> activated by F1 respectively Ctrl+F1 for context sensitive information and
> via menu.

Hmm, these guidelines are mostly for general UI design and not for the help 
system itself. Good help systems probably need guidelines as well, though. I'm 
not a technical writer, so I don't have much experience with documentation.
Maybe we should ask our documentation people for help with this.