What is the help and documentation usability heuristic?

Providing help and documentation to the user is the 10th usability heuristic provided by Neilson and Norman. In Norman’s words:

“Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.”

While applying this principle, we should take the following things into consideration:

• It should be easy to search for help.

• The documentation should be focused on the user’s tasks to minimize the interaction cost of the user.

• The help documentation should list concrete steps to be carried out.

Help is provided to users in two ways:

1. Proactive help: To familiarize users with the interface and prevent issues. It is provided before the user has encountered a problem. Examples include giving tips and onboarding tutorials, etc.

2. Reactive help: To answer specific questions and troubleshoot problems. When users face specific issues, they use reactive help for advice. Examples include documentation and videos targeted at specific issues.

Proactive help

Proactive help aims to make the users familiar with the interface. It is provided in three scenarios:

1. To new users at the first launch of an interface.
2. To novice users as they are gaining experience with an interface over time.
3. To existing users upon adding a new feature or if the interface has been redesigned.

We can implement this type of help in various ways, such as tutorials, wizards, tooltips, templates, etc.

There are two types of proactive help:

1. Push revelations
2. Pull revelations

Push revelations

Push revelations happen when the interface provides help that is not directly related to user goals. This type assists randomly, regardless of the actions being performed by the user. This is not contextual help and is often ignored by the users, as they do not want to read the information that is not relevant to them at that moment.

Pull revelations

Pull revelations provide help by showing contextual tips. These revelations are relevant to the tasks being performed by the user. They can be provided when the user’s mouse is hovering on a specific icon or if the user is starting a particular flow. Examples include contextual overlays, tooltips, etc. These are usually not ignored by the user, as these provide relevant information at the relevant time that the user will probably require to carry out a task.

Proactive help guidelines

• Provide it quickly, clearly, and concisely, as it distracts the user from the core task.

• Push revelations should be easily dismissible, as the user might not need them at that time, or a user who has previously visited the interface might get frustrated. As shown below, the app provides a clear option to skip the tutorial.

• Prioritize using pull over push revelations, as help should not be excessively forced on users. We should use push revelations to provide information that is likely needed without context, whereas pull revelations should be at the relevant time to assist users with their specific tasks.

• Users should be able to access proactive help even after they have dismissed it, as they might need it later. The content should be accessible elsewhere.

Reactive help

Reactive help is provided when users face a problem. It aims to troubleshoot problems, answer queries, and provide detailed documentation in case anyone wants to be more well-versed in the functions. This can be provided in the form of documentation, specific topic tutorials, frequently asked questions, etc.

Reactive help guidelines

• Make the documentation comprehensive and detailed. Do not assume that a user is supposed to know something obvious to you. It’s also important to include corner cases and scenarios, and not just the obvious information.

• Include pictures, videos, and graphics to help users understand. Instead of reading text-heavy information, a demo video or result picture can better convey information to users. The material design makes use of extensive visuals to convey information, as shown below:

• Provide effective search methods. When users need specific help, they prefer immediate results, so the search should help them immediately.

• Make categories of help topics that are related to each other so users can look into the specific categories.

• Support quick skimming and scanning of content by highlighting keywords, creating effective visual hierarchy, using bullets and lists, etc.

• Highlight frequently viewed content, as that might be the issue being faced by the current user as well; thus, make access to it easy by highlighting it.

Help and documentation are important components that can prove to be of significant help to users. We should ensure that it is not provided in a way that overloads the users with excessive information and frustrates them.