How do you make technical writing compelling in a promo video? We’ve been wrestling with this question this week as we planned a video for our online Help documentation writing service. The challenge seemed straightforward at first: create a compelling video for our website. But the more we discussed it, the more complicated it became…. Read more »
Tag: online Help
The ROI of user documentation: you could break even if you avoided 3 support calls per week
We’ve been experimenting with another spreadsheet for calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) on User Assistance. We wanted to look at: how many support calls an organisation needs to have resolved by users reading the Help content instead of calling Support, before it starts to see a return on the cost of creating the Help. Using… Read more »
Even iPad users search for Help
One of the graphs posted in yesterday’s blog showed the number of people searching for IPad Help. Here is the graph: For a product that “just works”, there is an increasing number people searching the Web for iPad Help. However, part of that increase can be put down to the increasing number of iPad sales:… Read more »
How software users become champions
Matthew Syed is a British sports journalist and former three times Commonwealth Games gold medallist, who has been investigating what is needed to make people excellent at doing any task involving complexity. He argues that natural talent, your genes, are far less important than many people think. What’s important is practising what you can’t quite do…. Read more »
Will the growth of tablet and mobile phone based reading lead to the return of Clippy?
Microsoft Clippy (aka “Office Assistant” or “Clipit”) is a feature remembered by many users of Microsoft Word. It assisted users by way of an interactive animated character, which interfaced with Office’s online Help. Although the concept of “embedded” or “persistent” Help was good, its application in the real-life working environment was not well received. With more and more… Read more »