Re: (no subject)

[Calum Benson <calum benson ireland sun com>]

Ilan Volow wrote:

> Instead of the user searching for a word that matches the procedure they
> want to perform on an object, why don't we let the user interact visually
> with the object in question to get the procedure(s) that can be performed on
> it. In other words, we could give each type of onscreen object (with a few
> exceptions, like menus) its own "help" entry in the contextual menu, and by
> selecting that entry, the user would get all the help system entries on that
> objects methods and properties.

Microsoft went through a phase of recommending this a few years ago,
although they don't seem to do it any more.  Nowadays in a Windows app,
pressing Shift+F1 is supposed to give you context-specific help about
whatever object is currently selected (or currently under the pointer),
but it always struck me that somebody who needed help was unlikely to
know they had to press Shift+F1 to get it...

Of course, here at Sun our keyboards have a huge button with the word
"Help" written on it, which is much more sensible  :o)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems