I’m becoming increasingly convinced that a help system is the dead last thing that people use for assistance. (Sometimes, though, if customer support is sufficiently lacking, that’s the dead last thing.) No matter how much we optimize help systems to make the information accessible, we just may never overcome the bad reputation that online help has.

I’m more and more persuaded that quick reference guides and videos are preferred formats. Brainwashed by Tom Johnson? Maybe. But users of an application where I’ve provided these materials have provided feedback about them, and not much about the online help. If something’s not right with the QRGs or videos, people are noticing much sooner than if something isn’t right with the help.

Don’t get me wrong—help has its place. But I think its place is as an information repository that acts as a backup if the quick reference guides and videos don’t do the job.

But how to get people to go to the QRGs and videos first? Easiest is probably from the help system. But if people don’t go to the help, how will they find these materials?

In the aforementioned application, we have the traditional “Help” link in the header. But the QRGs and videos are found by accessing a training menu from the landing page. Typically, training and help have two different aims; one is to instruct before or during the task, and the other is for answering questions or troubleshooting. Because people want to know how to do things, they go to the training rather than the help, even though the help also contains “how to” information.

I’m thinking that our applications should start containing links to “Training” or “Training/Help” and not just “Help.” The first things to come up would be an FAQ and a menu of QRGs and videos. If users doesn’t want those, they can navigate around the help system as usual.

I’m not sure exactly how this would work with context-sensitive help, though. Some feedback I’ve gotten suggests that context-sensitive help is preferred over getting the same generic help topic each time. Maybe the help for the specific page of the app still comes up, but there’s a menu at the top or in a sidebar linking to the FAQ, QRGs, and videos.

Calling the materials “training” instead of “help” may be splitting hairs and even tricking users, but it may be a more effective way to lead them to the things that will get them the quickest assistance.

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