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>
> The help in these games... from your description, it seems to
> depend on recognition of the user's status in many ways:
>
> - how much they already know
> - where they are in the game/program
> - where they've been in the program
> - how they are interacting currently.
>
> In other words, the primary usefulness and innovation -- the
> "added value", if you will -- beyond text and audio text, is
> the intelligence that determines what the user seems to need.
> (I trust that we all remember the horror that was "Clippy",
> the Microsoft Office assistant?? Obviously, the game developers
> learned from that, and won't be repeating anything like it...)
>
> Here in the "real world" of business-to-business and government
> crypto and data-security, our little product development
> division has a hierarchy of "requirements" for the current
> project, ranging from the driving customer's "absolutely
> must be in there", through various levels of "really should
> be included/fixed", "would be awfully nice if...", down to
> "waaahahahahaha what are you smokin'?"
>
> If I asked for the kind of intelligence that could analyze
> the user's progress and anticipate their assistance needs,
> I'd be asking for capability and effort that would dwarf
> the actual money-making product development.
>
I quite agree that "Today" we would not be able to do this effectively.
Entertainment software is much more linear than most productivity
software. In a game you start at a pre-defined point and have a limited
series of options from which you can select to advance (whether the game
follows a pre-defined story arc or not).
Most productivity software is much less linear. When I open something as
simple as Word, for instance, I may be composing a letter to a friend,
writing a poem, cranking out a hard-hitting journalistic expose, or
writing documentation on a guided missile system. I don't start in any
one place, and I can go an infinite number of directions based on what
task I'm trying to accomplish.
So I agree that understanding the variables of the user's proposed task,
frame of reference, familiarity with the tool, and intended goal is a
far more complex question in a program like Adobe Photoshop, MS Access
or FrameMaker than it is in an entertainment title.
> In my current project, I can't even get the developers to
> remove redundant/outdated/test commands and functions that
> the user doesn't need. There's no time.
> At today's status-of-the-deadline, actions as simple as
> disabling some questionable interface items are way down the
> difficulty spectrum from unthinkably labor-intensive requests
> like my couple of dozen real usability suggestions that I've
> already submitted. By comparison with what you describe, my
> humble suggestions were utterly trivial. So, if I were to
> propose the kind of system you describe, I think several
> somebodies would ask if I had stopped taking my meds.
>
> With that said, I surely would love to be part of that kind
> of development, but I don't see the path from where we are
> today (command-line interface and separate, non-context WebHelp)
> to the kind of sophistication and subtlety you describe.
>
> More likely, in fact, our products will filter over to the
> gamer side, both in their consoles and at the server-farms.
> (Secure authentication, non-repudiation, deployement of millions
> of profiles, accelerated SSL/SSH, etc., etc.) That latter trend
> will keep me and my co-workers employed, but I'd certainly
> enjoy creating the kind of Help that you describe... while
> collecting that paycheck.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kevin
>
You may be right. But Andy's original query was about the "Future" and
my recent experiences made me wonder if this was possibly the direction
all help systems would take as processing power and development tools
get more and more sophisticated.
As you say, it would be rather fun to work on that kind of development
project. Maybe someday... For now, I'm off until Tuesday. Have a great
weekend!
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