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

[doc at edwordsmith.com]

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:14:34 -0500 (EST), you wrote:

>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 ...


Ah, this is key!  Help (and googling) often leave us bogged
down working out a design for how to get something done,
even when the task (as designed) actually has a clear but
poorly documented  beginning and end.

The kind of loose ends we get when Help is poorly designed
are not much better than googling as a form of Help.  Still
and all, googling * is* a revolutionary way to approach
design tasks.
Ned Bedinger
doc at edwordsmith.com

"Intelligence is not how much you know, 
it's what you do when you don't know."