Help!

I’ve been thinking about help files recently. You see, one of the roles I invariably take on at any workplace is that of the all purpose PC troubleshooter. I’m sure anyone with a vague background in computers would know what I mean. You’re considered sort of like IT, only more friendly and approachable. Which is not to complain. I actually enjoy teaching people how to use computer and demystifying the (increasingly non-) beige box that sits on their desk gives me a warm feeling inside.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been assisting Maeda-sensei in particular, helping him to learn the magic of Excel, the joys of Google, and the delights of web-baesd email. It was particularly when I was teaching him how to use Gmail that it occurred to me that Maeda-sensei’s questions, often painfully ignorant, aren’t stupid. The fact is that Maeda-sensei didn’t grow up with a computer like a great many people of my generation did. The questions he asks are the same questions I’ve been asked numerous times before and questions I’m sure any computer newbie wants answers to. They’re basic questions like ‘what does this do?’. Questions, nonetheless, that are incredibly difficult for a Maeda-sensei to find an answer to.

And yet in spite of their simplicity and the frequency with which they’re asked it’s occurred to me how poor help files are at answering them. Users in need of assistance with computers are faced with two rather unappealing choices: try to find the answer in the included help documentation (if they are a newbie it is unlikely that a question as basic or general as theirs will be covered); or alternatively find someone who knows about computers. Unless one of your co-workers happens to fit the latter description chances are the average person with little computer experience will simply stop using the computer or program. I know of several people who essentially abandoned their computers when their behaviour changed unexpectedly and they couldn’t work out what had gone wrong. Does that occur with any other consume device you can think of?

And so all of this has got me thinking about help files. Because despite my background (indeed, degree), help documentation is largely an unknown area for me. For as long as I can remember computer by and large made sense. Occasionally I’ve hit the F1 key when I reached for F2, but almost as soon as that file loads up (you know, after about five minutes) its closed in a blur of key presses, banished until the next time I accidentally hit F1. And it goes not just for me but most people I know. Some hard core programmers at uni I remember read man pages but that was part of what made them the hard core. Most people just bumbled through or asked someone who knew more than they did.

Surely it shouldn’t be like this. Computers should be the perfect instructional device. With their visual and aural capabilities coupled with their interactivity the electronic help file should be a constant companion – not the bastard son we prefer to pretend doesn’t exist.  So what’s gone wrong?

For one thing, help documentation seems rooted in the Guttenberg era. Most of the time help files are hopelessly wedded to the metaphor of the printed page. Open any help file in whatever program or operating system you’re using and just look at it. Words are everywhere. Pictures are ridiculously rare as if we need to be worried about how much all this coloured ink is going to cost. This wouldn’t be such a problem if computing wasn’t one of the most jargon-laden subjects on the planet. But it is and that makes words all but useless in explaining things. How many average people know what a system tray or a dock is? Or a search bar? Or an icon?

And yet in spite of this inadequacy, words form the bulk of all help documentation. Interaction with the user is restricted to ‘Did that work?’ checkboxes or tables of contents.

Yet imagine how much easier it could be. Imagine that instead of taking five minutes to display a contents page, when you pressed F1 in Windows it opened a full-size interactive image of a desktop, where you could click around at various elements and receive detailed, plain English instructions of what they were and what they did right there. Instead of being told the save button was in the menu bar (what’s a menu bar?) you’d learn by clicking. No more trying to remember the name of that thing in the top right-hand corner of a web browser (it’s a throbber). If we really wanted to get freaky forget we could even ditch the image altogether and replace it with something integrated right into the operation system. You know how very, very, very rarely there are those little question marks in the corner of a dialog box? Why aren’t they around all the time?

It strikes me that even a basic version of this could be quite popular as a web site. Particularly if it aimed at the huge number of web apps that spring up everyday. I for one would recommend to my less technologically-abled friends that they refer to it as their first port of call before asking for my help and that wouldn’t be done solely for my benefit. In my experience people don’t like needing to ask for help to use a device as ubiquitous as the computer. They want to know how to use it but struggle to find adequate information. The huge computer help publishing industry is testament to that.

I imagine it could take a fair amount of time to develop but the more I’m thinking about it the more important it seems. It could start off small, perhaps, just helping to explain some sites like Gmail or Hotmail. Then, over time, if it became successful it could be expanded. And it wouldn’t be for everyone, of course. But then I don’t think that would be a problem in terms of user numbers. We have a vast number of people moving onto computers who don’t know their mouse from their motherboard and these people need help. Who’s going to help them?