While filing my income tax return online, I noticed that the primary way the website offered user assistance was through questions worded in first person. Each screen provided four to six questions that had to do with that particular screen. This caught my attention partly because I had just been thinking about empathetic user assistance. When I clicked a question, the corresponding information opened in a small pop-up window in the center of my screen.

I’ve wondered how different my job would be if we offered user assistance this way. I like to design some of the user interaction myself, whereas in projects like this tax site I used, it seems like the Web designer took care of that part, and all the technical writer (assuming there was one) did was supply questions and answers to be plugged in.

I had a contract job like that last year. The developers were using Oracle Application Express to build a Web app, and I discovered that I could plug in help information at the page level and at the field level in Application Express. We didn’t have to come up with the interaction because it was already built in. But it was kind of mind-numbing to write help text in that environment.

It’s partly the role of the designers to consider how the user assistance will be provided in an application. Working together (sounds like some motivational speech), we can arrive at the best solutions. I work on more than one project where the designer works some instructional text into the interface, and they have asked my help on it. But these are brief so as not to get in the way and distract, especially when a user understands the procedure enough to not need it. The more in-depth material belongs somewhere else where the user can choose whether to access it.

The things I liked about the immediate assistance on this tax site is that it was off to the side, and the questions were phrased mostly in the way I might think them. Unfortunately, not all interfaces allow for a sidebar with help. But it’s one to keep in the list of options when planning user assistance.

Related entries (auto-generated):

Helping the Team Broaden Their View

Knowing How Much Visual Assistance Is Too Much or Too Little

An Interaction Designer Who Understands the Need for Documentation

Well-Phrased Links Help Both Users and Technical Communicators

Dropdown Hotspots: A Solution for Cumbersome Help Topics