Re: [Usability] Recommended HIG providing additional info/help

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On Fri, 2005-01-21 at 14:18, Age Bosma wrote:

> So far I have seen about 3 different solutions to this problem:
> - Add (too much) text near a setting
> - Providing a tooltip on input field mouseover
> - Using a "location aware" help button

Historically, the GNOME documentation team have been opposed to adding
help text in a dialog, and the recommended method has therefore been to
add a left-aligned "Help" button to alerts and dialogs that need it,
which opens (hopefully useful) help about the current dialog.  Help
about application-level windows is supposed to be obtained via the Help
menu.

Tooltips for anything other than toolbar buttons and Applications menu
items isn't something the HIG gives much guidance on at the moment
though... certainly something to improve on in future.

Cheeri,
Calum.

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

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems