Re: Indices and not-indices? (take II)

[voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Personally, I start with the index. However, most of the Online Help I get
with software products have such dismal indexes, they are almost useless,
and I wind up using search.

And more times than not, the information I'm looking for isn't in the Help
system anyway, and then I have to go asking other users of the software.

After enough experiences with bad indexes (or none at all), I can understand
why users cease trying to use them at all, because it's usually a waste of
time. Which is unfortunate, IMO.

-Wendy

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> wrote:

> Seem to have missed the original message, but Kevin included the
> following quote: <<Maybe 5% even open the index other than by
> accident when using search.>>
>
> Where did this statistic come from? Is it a PSWAG (pseudoscientific
> wild-ass guess), or does it come from a published study in a
> reputable journal? I'll concede the point that almost everyone uses
> search at least once before trying something else, but the 5% number
> sounds highly suspect to me.
>
> I recall a well-controlled study many years ago (maybe Jared Spool?
> I'd have to dig really deep to find it, so don't blame him if I got
> this wrong) that suggested most users start with the search tool,
> then move to the index if they don't find what they want by
> searching. I suspect this varies greatly depending on how abstruse
> the keywords are that are used by your software (the weirder the
> words, the more likely a non-expert user will not know them and will
> have to resort to synonyms), but it makes a lot of sense to me; it's
> certainly how I look for information, and it's how I've seen others
> look for information.
>
> Treat that as anecdotal evidence; I haven't collected any statistics
> other than for myself.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
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