Increased detail and explanation for users to gain understanding on certain topics.
2
votes
0answers
15 views
A use case for popups?
I had always believed that popups were bad practice for various reasons including: Breaking the flow, bad for accessibility, potential to hide content etc.
While looking at the FAQ's and help ...
2
votes
3answers
74 views
When should you start working on help documentation on a large project?
I'm involved in a massive project that is turning 70+ antiquated systems into one system for a large company. The whole team and the executives at the company realize that this is a huge undertaking ...
-2
votes
2answers
86 views
How many clicks are too many? [duplicate]
We design a Help window for a mobile application. Ideally, how many clicks should be there before user reach the Help.
1
vote
1answer
35 views
Dynamic help on an already cluttered screen [closed]
One part of our application is providing an analytical display of data on different parts of customer's website, this is achieved by using layover tiles that expand with data on rollover.
We would ...
6
votes
5answers
225 views
Help panels inside application
Are there good UX reasons for not putting a "help panel" within a web application? (one that can be shown or hidden).
Most applications open help in a different browser tab. I'm thinking of just ...
6
votes
3answers
78 views
Form prompts inside form fields always wrong?
I've noticed in the edit-profile form on UX Stack Exchange a weird prompt with an important message - the date format.
Personally I would consider it terribly wrong (force to memorize data format, ...
3
votes
1answer
68 views
Should your Help section have questions or topics?
Which is more user friendly? Organizing your Help section with popular phrased questions or topics?
Clear topics are easier to scan whereas with popular phrased questions you have a chance to match ...
3
votes
3answers
235 views
Which is the better user experience for a web app: an integrated support ticket module or a separate app?
I am building a new web app which hopefully will be subscription based, and I am wondering what will be better:
to develop a quick ticket module
or
redirect user to separate knowledgebase / ...
7
votes
6answers
482 views
Is the “Help” feature really helping?
Almost all apps/sites have a feature 'help' regardless of type and subject of the app/site. I have rarely seen people using the same for their benefit. I would want to know if it's worth putting the ...
4
votes
3answers
896 views
Best/Standard Practices for Creating & Building Help Files for End User
Anybody know of any best or standard practices for creating help files/guide for software for the help of the end user?
This is a software that has many features and options where the user would need ...
1
vote
1answer
81 views
Why F1 is the default help key?
Why F1 is the default function key of the keyboard used by many applications/operative systems to show help information to the user?
14
votes
2answers
233 views
Does an “Other” category on a Help page have any value?
When designing a Help page or FAQ that is broken down into categories, is a category titled "Other" useful, or does it indicate a poor information architecture?
Sometimes there are truly items that ...
23
votes
7answers
1k views
Help menu - “?” or “Help”?
It is a very simple question, but it has been bothering me for quite some time: when creating an application, should the help menu (in the menu bar) be called "?" or "Help"?
I can see a few ...
6
votes
5answers
145 views
How to lay out a screen with dozens of fields and have help for each
We have a screen that has a form that gathers a lot of input.
Many of the terms and questions are confusing so we have help for them.
We are trying to put a little (?) help icon for each line.
We ...
8
votes
6answers
379 views
Best way to communicate an abstract app concept such as a 'workspace' to users
The issue I'm struggling with is fairly specific, but it touches on a general UX topic, which is how to help users grasp some abstract app concept, such as some information organization or structuring ...
-3
votes
1answer
92 views
Help needed in case of designing a site for Hospital [closed]
I've been assigned to re-design a hospital site. Here is the link for the site.
lrh.gov
Now my question is what flaws does this site has, what things should i consider before building this sort of ...
29
votes
12answers
1k views
Hover over a disabled item to know why it's disabled. What do you think?
How many times did you use a desktop app or an online page and you come across one or more menu items which are disabled and you have no idea why its disabled. Using help or documentation is of no ...
4
votes
2answers
184 views
How Many Screenshots Are Too Many
At what point am I offering too many screenshots? I am working a redesign of my company's help guides - these guides are mostly centered around our hosted mail services. How to set up Outlook, set up ...
2
votes
5answers
304 views
Tooltips to shorten your content
At my job there is no UX expert, which can be frustrating since most of the daily discussions I have with colleagues is about user experience / interaction.
Right now there is a discussion regarding ...
3
votes
4answers
716 views
Why is embedded help not popular?
I'm wondering why modern help systems are more passive than active? For example, each good guide through something look like this:
So why we don't see this directly on website (service provider), ...
15
votes
2answers
452 views
What happened to “What's this?” help?
"What's this?" help or context-sensitive help* used to be commonplace in Windows applications a few years ago. Dialog windows had an additional "?" button in the top right, that when clicked, gave you ...
19
votes
5answers
2k views
Best practices for online help
we're currently developing a fairly complex web portal. To improve the user experience, we want to provide a context-sensitive online help system that can aid the user in understanding certain aspects ...
5
votes
2answers
211 views
Context sensitive help - making sure they use it
I want to add a context-sensitive help to my interface. It's a complex of numerous screens and data fields, intended for the trained enterprise user.
Following this question and this one about why ...
1
vote
1answer
108 views
Any good resources for, or examples of, good ways to present 'new user tips'?
Launching the beta version of a new web app shortly and want to provide a small number of new user tips that will appear one at a time the first 5-10 times a user logs on. I'm looking for some best ...
8
votes
6answers
3k views
Best way to display large amounts of user data on a single page?
I've been searching around for some related posts, but I haven't really found anything that has been a lot of help. I've found a few posts that might help generate some ideas.
Here is what I'm ...
5
votes
4answers
239 views
Version Control for Help Files
What is the best way to have version control when creating complex help files with new updates and versions coming out quarterly or so?
How does one best go about versioning the Help file?
...
2
votes
1answer
60 views
Best practices or resources about online assessment
I have a project to deliver an online assessment of a large number of users. The assessment is for a psychological research project, so the content is mostly self-description asked in a variety of ...
3
votes
4answers
212 views
How wise is it to use a Q&A app AND a forum?
From the research that I have done, a Q&A site (such as this one) is great for support areas of a website. "How do I do ...?" and "What is the best option for ...?" work well with this.
But ...
1
vote
3answers
149 views
Where is the best place to put example input for a form? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Where should form instructions or hints be placed?
Which of the following is the best place for the example (e.g. 12345) on long/short/busy/simple forms? (...and why?)
...
1
vote
1answer
108 views
Currently designing a “Help” page, what would be considered too-much help to see on one page?
The page for "help" within the site is designed well. The site totals about 40 questions, which has been reduced down from 86. My objective is to simplify the user experience for viewing/navigating ...
3
votes
2answers
115 views
Why don't applications explain reason for greyed-out icons/menu options? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Don’t hide or disable menu items?
I think applications should explain why an option of clickable icon is greyed-out i.e. not selectable or not active. For example a ...
3
votes
3answers
320 views
CVV “What is this?” help dialog - still necessary?
Many online shopping carts have a "What is this?" help dialog attached to a CVV input field.
Here is an example from Paypal:
My assumption is that more people are familiar with online shopping, ...
3
votes
1answer
117 views
Where should the contact us link be placed in an Ecommerce site?
I just finished designing an Ecommerce site and the in the site design, I put the contact us link in the header as given below:
The feedback I got was that they would like to add an additional link ...
3
votes
2answers
152 views
What is the value of FAQs on a product website?
I am re-designing a product site, and the client insists on having a FAQs section. I originally placed it in an area of low prominence on the site, but now the client is questioning it. What is the ...
2
votes
4answers
245 views
In a web app, how do I give explanatory text?
In our web app, I need to explain some information that is useful, but is not the most important part of the app. I'm interested in the best way to do this.
To give a concrete example, I have a list ...
0
votes
2answers
149 views
What type of help documentation is delivered with mobile devices [closed]
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 ...
8
votes
5answers
523 views
Where should form instructions or hints be placed?
I was browsing Forrst and came about a screenshot of a form designed with Twitter Bootstrap that had the label on the left, the input field on the right, and the instruction that it's required under ...
2
votes
3answers
101 views
What method can be used to inform the user of different levels of assistance that a service offers?
I am building a comparison shopping site for payroll processing. There are two aspects of payroll processing that differ across different providers: Tax Form Filing and Tax Payments.
For each of the ...
2
votes
1answer
202 views
How to walk the user through a complicated UI on a small iPhone screen?
I've been building and building and ended up with an app that I now need to educate the user on first use. It is a very "sophisticated" and quick icon generator for programmers. My app has up to 16 ...
3
votes
1answer
320 views
Implementing the iPhone alpha navigation in the browser [closed]
Curious if anyone has examples of the alpha navigation used in iPhone apps to jump quickly through long lists, but implemented in the browser? Think - a mobile browser version of Contacts.app where ...
3
votes
2answers
367 views
Best uses of ? (help) and i (information) icons in UI
What are the best standards of usage for the help and information icons? (I'm unable to post an image because I am a new user, but the icons are either a ? or an i in a circle, most commonly)
The ...
9
votes
4answers
341 views
Is it still preferred/acceptable to right-align the Help menu in Windows applications?
Back when I first learned Windows GUI programming, it seemed very common to right-align the Help menu in applications.
It seems this is no longer the norm in all of the Windows applications I ...
9
votes
5answers
1k views
What are some examples of well-designed website tutorial/help systems? [closed]
Background
My company is starting to do some long overdue work on our online help/tutorial system, and the goal is to make it more lively, integrated, and interactive. We have a large database of ...
5
votes
4answers
277 views
Built in user guides
I want my web application to be self-explanatory. There are input fields and whole pages which need some paragraphs of explanation. How to integrate these user guides to my application? How to make ...
4
votes
2answers
523 views
Providing in App help on iPad apps
We are building a Teacher app that has many functionalities and we want to add in-app help. Something interactive, contextual or otherwise.
Which sort of in-app help should I use?
Here is the app, ...
3
votes
3answers
115 views
Is it necessary to include an interface's “hidden functions” in the manual / help?
Background
A well designed interface allows any type of user, beginner, advanced, or expert, to achieve their objective quickly. In most cases, help information contains the description of elements ...
4
votes
4answers
165 views
Taking payment from a card, how much help is needed?
I've noticed more recently the reduced amount of hints and help on card payment forms. Some are only offering help for CV2 code (the 3 digit one on the back). My question is...
Has payment ...
22
votes
4answers
827 views
Multiplication sign, using '*' or 'x'
In Mathematics, the operator provide on keyboard is quite clear for addition, subtraction and divide as the follow + - /
The multiplication * might be familiar as the multiplication for programmer ...
9
votes
7answers
1k views
What's the best way to create screenshots with callouts to show features of a program?
I'm redesigning a website for a downloadable app. I'd like to create a Tour of the features which has screenshots pointing out how to use it.
What are the best tools for doing this?
For bonus ...
15
votes
4answers
409 views
Discovering new features
I work with a web-based platform with lots of data and various tools to view the data, perform analysis. Users are often impressed by one or two features and stick with them. The platform adds new ...
