I’m starting a new help project, and I decided to take the opportunity to try something a little bit different. The help is going to be context-sensitive, probably WebHelp. In previous CSH projects, I provided an image of the screen and placed numbers in places where I was going to describe the functionality. Below the screenshot were corresponding annotations.

I have usually kept the how-to content separate. In one project, a separate manual described procedures for the various roles in the system. In another, I included how-to information in a second section in the table of contents. This time, I’m going to do something in between.

First, I’m planning to avoid the full screenshots and instead rely on smaller pieces of the application screens. The main approach here, though, is to have a two-column format for each help topic, the right column being something of a sidebar. The main column will describe the screen’s functionality. The sidebar, titled “How Do I…?”, will provide steps for doing certain tasks that relate to that screen.

The reason for this approach is that in my previous experience, it’s been a challenge to appropriately mix instructional content with informational. This approach, I hope, will provide both kinds in the context in which they’re needed by users. The two-column format will allow the user to scan each type of information and focus on the type he wants instead of having to scroll through a topic looking for the type of information he’s looking for. If he wants procedural, he can choose to look just at the sidebar and ignore the rest.

Since this is a small project, it will give me a chance to try this idea out and see how it works for a small user group before I start using this pattern for more projects in the future.