RoboHelp Article

Creating Online Help (Part 1): Design and Development Considerations

Basic Types of Help Systems

An online Help system can fulfill a wide range of purposes. These include:

• PC application performance support
• Web-based content performance support
• Policy and procedure manuals
• Tutorials
• Animated demonstrations
• Catalogs
• Brochures
• Presentations
• Design and development guidelines
• Newsletters
• Resumes

The design of online Help systems is similar to standard Help systems in that both are composed of multiple topics. Help topics are separate screens of information. Typically compact in size, they are the basic unit of organization within a Help system and contain all the relevant information your users seek. You can also define basic types of Help systems by their focus and design.

Performance Support Help

Through step-by-step instructions, this type of system guides your users through what they should do to accomplish their work. This type of Help uses lengthy explanations and procedure topics to explain how to perform a task. Performance Support Help is divided into two formats:

• PC Application Performance Support Help

  This type of Help is integrated with a PC application to assist users with using a computer program. Microsoft HTML Help is an ideal Help platform for Windows-based PC applications. This Help is a compiled file with many topics. A user selects any topic and it will display in an HTML Help viewer when the application calls it. HTML Help was constructed to include an “application programming interface” or API. That means, programmers can create code that MS HTML Help can recognize and respond to. This code triggers the HTML Help viewer to display information in a pop-up window, or a standard HTML Help window. This code may also determine which Help topic to display. HTML Help is easy to manage with a PC application because it is compiled into a single easily shippable file known as a CHM or “compiled HTML Help.” It is not an ideal platform for web-based application support because it typically requires users to download it from a remote site to make it usable.

• Web-Based Application Performance Support Help

  This type of Help integrates with web-based content, including web-based applications and assists users inside of a website. FlashHelp and WebHelp (which are online Help formats generated from within RoboHelp) are the most ideal Help platforms for this type of environment. That's because FlashHelp and WebHelp are a set of uncompiled topic files that are easy to display inside a secondary browser window. FlashHelp and WebHelp are designed to operate on a wide range of platforms, from UNIX to Mac to Windows, and in any number of browsers including Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera and more. This makes FlashHelp and WebHelp cross-browser, cross-platform Help platforms.

What's This? Help

Unlike performance support Help that displays in static Help windows with conceptual information and numbered procedural steps, a What's This? Help system provides short descriptions in pop-up windows for an application's fields and controls. What's This? Help systems often display after a user clicks a question mark icon button in an application and then clicks an interface element in the application. The user may also activate What's This? Help by right-clicking and selecting a What's This? menu option. In both cases, a What's This? Style pop-up topic appears next to the element of interest.

Tutorials

Though their purpose is different from that of Performance Support Help or What's This? Help, you may consider creating tutorials to incorporate inside a Help system. Tutorials instruct users on how to use an application using sample content or illustrations instead of real content. To that extent, tutorials do not help users accomplish their current work, but instead prepare users for working with your application, and to be more effective after they've started using the application. Macromedia RoboDemo provides a simple, intuitive way to create highly-compressed demonstrations for animated tutorials.

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