Re: User's guide for Web applications?

[Scott Wahl <wahl_scott -at- yahoo -dot- ca>]

I'll just add a brief comment to Geoff's.

Why is there no plan for online help?

In my experience (both working on web app projects and
using them), users expect to be able to use anything
on the Web without referring to documentation at all.
That will likely not make the distinction between a
complex Web application and the various e-commerce or
email Web sites that they are familiar with.

So you should try to make user support as embedded as
possible. At very least, provide links to
context-sensitive HTML-based help. Even better, put
all the necessary tool-tips and explanations right in
the application interface.

Even if you can't provide true context-sensitive
online help, I think you're still better to put any
user guide info in HTML format (perhaps launched in a
separate browser window). This way, users can browse
for information without leaving the Web.

Of course Geoff is right: if for some reason you
_must_ use PDF then you should assume that users will
want to read small, focused PDFs in a browser window:
not print out a whole user's guide.

Scott

--
Scott Wahl
Senior Technical Writer
Research in Motion
www.blackberry.net

--- "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> wrote:
> Laura Varteressian reports: <<[We] have been asked
> to create a user's guide
> in PDF to be distributed to the end users of a new
> Web app. We expect users
> to download the PDF from the Web site and search
> (and perhaps print) the
> document for answers to their questions. There is no
> plan for online help
> for the application, so all users questions need to
> be answered within the
> application itself or in the PDF. >>

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