HelpfulHelp

Status

• Created: Date(2005-04-27T09:55:24Z) by MartinPool

• Priority: NeedsPriority

• People: MartinPoolLead, NeedsSecond

• Contributors: MartinPool, MatthewThomas

• Interested:

• Status: BrainDump, UduBof, NewSpec

• Branch:
• Malone Bug:
• Packages:
• Depends:
• Dependents:

  FullSearch(HelpfulHelp)

• UduSessions: 1, 4, 8, etc

Introduction

"Help" in GNOME is rarely helpful at present. The button/menu item usually acts as a link to the manual, which is rarely helpful.

Consider what you would do if a user said "help!". Would you start listing the commands? No. You would could do any of several things:

• Give a brief summary of what the programme is about and how to do the task they seem to be trying to do at the moment.

• Take them through some trouble-shooting questions if they seem to be having trouble.
• Link in to the support/bug reporting system.

See also AutomatedProblemReports.

Rationale

Providing help when people get stuck is part of an overall humane experience.

See for example [http://blogs.msdn.com/jonathanh/archive/2005/04/11/407484.aspx this post about web search vs online help in MS Office].

Scope and Use Cases

• When an error message is shown, there is a link to help with troubleshooting information and a place to submit a support request/bug.

Implementation Plan

Data Preservation and Migration

Packages Affected

User Interface Requirements

Outstanding Issues

UDU BOF Agenda

UDU Pre-Work