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The first topic in the sequence provides specific information about the
user’s context—in this case, a description of a control in the HP VUE
front panel.
Since customization is an important
part of a personal toolbox, the second topic in the sequence provides
basic “how to” information.
The third topic exposes some
important related topics and
terminology.
The Browse… button opens a
general help dialog.
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fact, the information architecture will become increasingly
difficult to distinguish from the application architecture.
of many people throughout HP during the HP Help System
project.
An intelligent user interface will draw upon an information
base and the application functions to present user interface
components (see Fig. 7c). The user interface may still present
what the user perceives as online help, but it is generated
from a combination of knowledge and application functions,
along with the user's current context. Further, there will be a
strong relationship between the knowledge base and the
application functions (a channel missing in Foley's model).
Richard Artz, Anna Ellendman, and Jodi Peterson were
among the dozens of talented learning products engineers
that contributed valuable design review and direction for
online learning products. Jay Lundell and Jan Ryles offered
insightful human factors review and testing.
Providing online help has grown in recent years from a nice
to have" feature to an expected component of all significant
application software. For some products, online help reĆ
duces support costs because it puts information where the
user is more likely to find it (meeting the goals in our goal
hierarchy). For other products, providing online help also
reduces the cost of printing hardcopy manuals.
As applications continue to grow in complexity, so does the
need to simplify them for users. For the foreseeable future,
online help plays an important role in helping with that simĆ
plification. Today, online help systems are discrete compoĆ
nents that aid application developers in packaging easierĆ
toĆuse products. In the future, online help will become a
byĆproduct of an information engineering process that
addresses all information aspects of a product.
Gathering and refining of the information presented in this
paper wouldn't have been possible without the contributions
Of course, the engineers who designed and built the HP Help
System contributed the most important partĊa great prodĆ
uct. Thanks to Lori Cook, Brian Cripe, Axel Deininger, Steve
Hiebert, and Mike Wilson. Also, thanks to Bill Kaster, loaned
to us from Corporate Learning Products, for codeveloping
the HP HelpTag language and compiler. Project managers
Bob Merritt, Bob Miller, and Rick McKay also helped to foster
a creative environment by welcoming crossĆfunctional and
crossĆorganizational collaboration.
1. N. J. Belkin, and P.G. Marchetti, Determining the Functionality
and Features of an Intelligent Interface to an Information Retrieval
System," Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on
Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR '90),
September 1990, pp. 151Ć178.
2. J. Price, Creating a Style for Inline Help," ConText and HyperĆ
TextĊWriting With and For the Computer, MIT Press, pp. 311Ć323.
3. W. Horton, Let's Do Away With Manuals Before They Do Away
With Us," Journal of the Society of Technical Communications, Vol.
40, no. 1, January 1993, pp. 26Ć34.
4. J. Foley, W. Kim, S. Kovacevic, and K. Murray, UIDE - An IntelliĆ
gent User Interface Design Environment," Intelligent User Interfaces,
AddisonĆWesley Publishing Company.
April 1994 HewlettĆPackard Journal