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abstract

Benefit analysis of user assistance improvements

Published: 07 May 2011 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a study conducted to examine the impact of changes to our user assistance model in our enterprise software systems. In this study, we examined both a traditional user assistance model, as well as our new user assistance model.
In the traditional user assistance model, users of a general ledger prototype were given inline error messages and access to a PDF version of the help manual from a help icon at the top of the page. In the new user assistance model, error messages appeared in pop-up windows with links to specific areas where users could correct the errors. Fields that needed to be changed were highlighted with a red border and when clicked, a description of the required change would appear. When users needed help, they could select from lists of relevant help topics available at different levels based on where they were working in the system.

References

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Spencer, C. J., & Yates, D. K. (1995). A Good User's Guide Means Fewer Support Calls and Lower Support Costs. Technical Communication: Journal of the Society for Technical Communication, 42(1), 52--55.
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Blackwell, C. A. (1995). A Good Installation Guide Increases User Satisfaction and Reduces Support Costs. Technical Communication: Journal of the Society for Technical Communication, 42(1), 56--60.
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Kantner, L.; Rosenbaum, S.; and Shroyer, R. (2002). Structured Heuristic Evaluation of Online Documentation. In IPCC 2002 Proceedings.
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Quesenbery, W. (2001). Meeting User Needs for Useful Online Information. Journal of the Society of Technical Communication, vol. 48, no. 2, 182--188.
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Rintjema, L. and Warburton, K. (1998). Creating an HTML Help System for Web-based Products. In Proceedings of SIGDOC 98, ACM Press, 23--28.
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Grayling, T. (2002). A Usability Test of Two Browser-based Embedded Help Systems. Journal of the Society of Technical Communication, vol. 49, no. 2, 193--209.
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McLellan, S.G.; Roesler, A.W.; and Elliot, A.L. (1996). "The Effect of Advice Message Location on User Performance," IEEE Trans. Prof. Comm., vol. 39, pp. 43--48.
[8]
Standish: Project Success Rates Improved Over 10 Years (Jan 15, 2004) http://www.softwaremag.com/l.cfm?doc=newsletter/2004-01-15/Standish, retrieved October 6, 2010.
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Krigman, M. CRM failure rates: 2001--2009 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/crm-failure-rates-2001-2009/4967, retrieved October 6, 2010.

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  • (2022)Thinking about help systemsProceedings of the 21st Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3554364.3559116(1-12)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2022

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  1. Benefit analysis of user assistance improvements

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI EA '11: CHI '11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2011
    2554 pages
    ISBN:9781450302685
    DOI:10.1145/1979742

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

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    Published: 07 May 2011

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    Author Tags

    1. guides
    2. help
    3. manuals
    4. messages
    5. user assistance

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

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    • (2022)Thinking about help systemsProceedings of the 21st Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3554364.3559116(1-12)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2022

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