Is the Help Helpful? How to Create Online Help That Meets Your Users' Needs [Paperback]

Jean Hollis Weber (Author), Tamar E. Granor (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 28, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1930919603 | ISBN-13: 978-1930919600

Intended for technical writing students, project managers, writers, editors, and others involved in the production of online help, this guide presents the full cycle of help content development, regardless of the operating system running the application, the type of help being produced, or the tools used to produce it. The 10 most common complaints that users have with online help, the causes of these underlying problems, and ways to avoid them are discussed in detail. Eleven steps in the ideal help development process, their benefits, and the problems that arise when a step is left out are also included. Techniques for planning, writing, editing, reviewing, and testing online help are covered and sample specifications, outlines, and maps for a help project are provided.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jean Hollis Weber is a technical publications consultant and has worked for numerous organizations including the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), IBM Australia, and Lexmark International Australia. She is active in the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and her web site, The Technical Editors' Eyrie (jeanweber.com), won a Merit Award in the STC-Australia online communication competition in 2002.

Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Hentzenwerke Publishing (November 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930919603
• ISBN-13: 978-1930919600
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #745,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I have over 30 years of experience as a technical editor and writer. In 2003, after retiring from the paid workforce, I became involved with the OpenOffice.org community in the role of "lead editor" for a group of volunteers called OOoAuthors, who are writing user guides for OpenOffice.org. I am now Co-lead of the Documentation Project at OpenOffice.org. I am also active in the Friends of OpenDocument Inc., which publishes printed versions of the OpenOffice.org user guides.

In the past I was active in the Australia Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication and the Australian Society for Technical Communication. I have won several awards for my books and editors' website.

I maintain several websites and blogs: JeanWeber.com for technical editors, Avalook.com for travellers to Australia, Taming-Openoffice-org.com for users of OpenOffice.org, FriendsofOpenDocument.com, and jeanweber.blogspot.com for miscellaneous interests.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent synopsis of the help development process, January 24, 2006

By 

J. M. Swisher "technical writer" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Is the Help Helpful? How to Create Online Help That Meets Your Users' Needs (Paperback)

This book brings together many aspects of writing technical documentation, with the specific focus of writing online help. It's like "Managing Your Documentation Projects" (Hackos, 1994), but for online help projects, without assuming a large doc department or heavy-weight processes. The first chapter summarizes the help development process as an introduction to planning a project, including the benefits and pitfalls of each step. The later chapters each focus on a specific phase, task, or issue in the process. I'm perplexed by the complaints of "Unhappy Buyer" about the task-oriented headings and bullet points in "Is the Help Helpful?", as I found those to be among the most helpful features of this book.

The book does not assume you are using any particular help technology or help authoring tools (though these are summarized in an appendix). So, for example, while Chapter 6 covers issues in producing a table of contents and index, you may need to refer to other sources for instructions in how to implement them with the specific technology and tool you are using.

Many of the topics covered in this book are addressed in greater depth in other books; an appendix offers a list of references for further reading. To really understand all these issues, you would need to read several books. However, you could read all those other books, and still not get the focus on online help offered by this one.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars for writers and programmers, April 24, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Is the Help Helpful? How to Create Online Help That Meets Your Users' Needs (Paperback)

Online help is a wonderful thing when well done. But how to achieve this? This is different from a standard programming problem, when one might be implementing an algorithm incorrectly or inefficiently. There are various ways to test for these. But when it comes to determining the usefulness of a given corpus of online help associated with a program, then we get into intangibles. Weber helps us along, by showing how you can use procedures to evaluate from your users how relevant they perceive the help to be.

The book is useful, and not just to technical writers. Often programmers should be involved in some writing of that help text. Or even if they aren't, then they have to aid a writer in composing it. In either case, an appreciation of what makes good online help may lead to better information being conveyed.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There is a better book available, September 24, 2008

By 

Ian C. Rosaaen - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Is the Help Helpful? How to Create Online Help That Meets Your Users' Needs (Paperback)

In addition to this book, I also bought "Standards for Online Communication," (SFOC) by J. Hackos & D. Stevens. As of this writing, I've read much of both books. Is the Help Helpful? seems to have taken it's material from SFOC. SFOC is more thorough and therefore easier (for me) to understand. If you are creating online help, go with SFOC.