A Good Response to "No One Reads the Help Anyway"

[Yves JEAUROND]

One could add that Google's greatest disadvantage
in comparison to Help is that [good] Help tells you
 where to start and when something is finished.
  Google can go on and on and on and ...
  
Help is a tool for limiting information about a topic; Google expands
the scope of information. That's just the opposite of what a user needs
from documentation. Research is not what a user is doing.
  In _About Face_, Al Cooper sums it up: "A user would rather be succesful than knowledgeable."
   
   
  YJ

"McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin.McLauchlan at safenet-inc.com> a écrit :
  

On Behalf Of Bill Swallow argued:

> >
http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2007/12/11/a-good-response-to-no-one-re
> > ads-the-help-anyway/
> 
> I disagree with that on so many levels that I don't know where to
> start, but as far as getting people to understand via analogy, I guess
> it works. But, Google is not a giant Help file any more than a Help
> file is a mini Google. These two technologies have but two things in
> common: 1) hypertext, and 2) search.

I think they have a third thing in common:
3) content that people want/need

and a fourth:
4) content that most people don't need.

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