The Communication Studio LLC

All men by nature desire to know.

Aristotle

Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes.

A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.

Jorge Luis Borges

Being Helpful

Documentation is the design infrastructure of your project.

  • It enables good design process
  • It benefits all the members of the team
  • It provides a shared reality

The best way to serve your customer is to design a site that's intuitively obvious, appropriate in its complexity, and easy on the eye. Beyond that, embedded "online help" features are also important, especially since they're so hard to do well.

    • Nobody ever reads the manual. It's boring. Wordy. Too theoretical.
    • Nobody wants to learn how something works. We want it to be obvious.
    • Immediacy rules. Relevance and appropriateness are a big part of that.

Aside from good basic design, there are several simple things we can do to make the "customer experience" better at the level of screen design.

Context-Sensitive Popups

This "just in time" info is the main source of useful help. These are small information boxes that popup when the mouse hovers over something. Wireframes

On-Screen Directions

Call it an Introduction, a Summary, an Overview, whatever: Well-written (concise and clear) on-screen text tells me Where I am, What I can do, and How I can get there.Wireframes

Mini-Presentations

Don't just talk about it - "Show Me". Target the 3-to-5 most important tasks and demonstrate them on-screen. The extra effort will be well-rewarded. User Assistance

FAQ's

Frequently Asked Questions show that you understand the situation ("I anticipate your question. Here's the answer.") If you find you've got a bunch of FAQ's focusing on a particular topic, then you may want to create a mini-presentation.User Assistance

Site Map

A visual overview of the site representation speeds understanding and can be an excellent shortcut for those who use it. As ever, a picture is worth a thousand words. Sitemap

Standard Online Help

Includes the usual power tools: Table of Contents, Index and Keyword Search. This stuff is packed with information - The challenge is getting people to use it. Screenshots and graphics help a lot.User Assistance

Context sensitive info. Available at the moment of need. Lean text. Task-oriented demos. And Pictures.

Hyperlinks are great for making immediate connections, but I often don't know what I'm getting into. Sometimes the biggest interactive design challenge is to provide a hint of what happens next...