What type of help documentation is delivered with mobile devices [closed]

Question

I'm doing some research on delivering manuals/help for mobile platforms. From what I have seen so far, most devices have a Quick Start Guide, a PDF User Manual, and mainly embedded help. Have you noticed any other deliverables?

For the applications, the mobile apps do not follow the same model of linking to a full help system. They seem to have guided text in the UI itself. Is that becoming the norm?

Answer 1

Having created several mobile apps, there are 2 main types of "help":

Initial walkthrough
Often the first thing the user sees, even before signup (if needed) or initial usage. It serves to explain what the app is about, its main appeal and capabilities.
It usually takes the form of several swipable pages, or a short video.

On-screen tips and pointers
Much more specific help, offered exactly in the place the user might need it. Usually appears with new UI elements that might not be completely self-explanatory, or when the developer wants to draw the user's attention to a less obvious (and hence important) action/flow.

Usually both appear only once and can be accessed again from the "settings" or "about" pages.

In general we use our mobile phones for brief periods of time, launching apps that are most of the time very straight forward and simple. Any app that is not self explanatory and intuitive is immediately discarded. No one would sit around to actually read anything to help them figure out what the app is about. I agree with Ben - I rarely read any document provided with any piece of software and if I have to, it's usually a bad sign. Without a doubt though this is accentuated with mobile apps.

Answer 2

Help documentation is a form of user onboarding. For mobile, onboarding has moved away from traditional, long-form documentation and instead is being delivered in mobile-friendly patterns including dialog boxes, tours, and tips, among others.

When deciding how to onboard your users, keep in mind a few guidelines:

• Think of everything as onboarding. Look for opportunities to demonstrate or teach about your system in all situations.
• Onboarding can supplement usability but it cannot replace it. Onboarding is a technique to help users use your system and to prevent potential errors, but using onboarding techniques does not remove the requirement to build an interactive system on a solid foundation of usability best practices.
• Complex or new systems need more onboarding. If your app or site is highly complex and/or delivers functionality that is truly unique you'll want to spend more time introducing it to your users. If your app is simple or familiar, less start-up onboarding is needed.
• Give the user control. Let the user opt of our tours, pop-ups or alerts, follow learn more links, or guide their own onboarding experience as little or as much as desired. When possible, make changes gradual and reversible.
• Make sure there's more than one way to get help. If a user skips a tour, for example, make sure there haven't just skipped info that they can't get otherwise. Provide additional paths to important info (a link to help documentation, tips throughout the app, etc.).

Here's a great article on mobile design patterns--including onboarding patterns--from UX Booth.