Re: (no subject)

["Blad, John Erling" <john erling blad aftenposten no>]

>I think that if any usability improvement needs a hint or some tooltip to
>explain it (as opposed to being inherent) the idea needs to be tweaked a
bit
>more...

>Gerry

What I experienced during some user testing when it comes to "help" and
"hints" if they found something new:

  o The user scans the toolbar (if "something" was at the system level)
  - they never figured out the right button if it don't had any label
  o The user scans the menubar with it's submenus
  o The user searched for tooltips
  - most users starts to get a bit angry here
  o The user looked in popup menus
  - supprise, even if the app were an object-type of app (if something
happen
    with an object why don't they look in the asossiated menu?)
  o The user tried "help"

When they tried to do something unusual an "undo" feature made it possible
to try out the feature and return to the previous state. That happen a lot..
Actually they was more at ease with this than with tool-tips and help
systems.

We generalized this to always have (if possible)

  o A menubar for listing of available actions (even if the user don't use
    it for most of s/he's work)
  o An undo feature (this had a very high stress release factor)
  o Tooltips as a first level help system (really, the menubar was the first
    level help system)
  o A full blown help system (the user nearly never used it but it was a
    stress release to have it)

John