Alan Cooper

to minimize mouse movement

The set of index entries is arguably as important as the help text itself. The user will forgive a poorly written help entry more easily than he will forgive what he believes to be a missing help entry. The more goal-directed the thinking in creating the text and the index, the better they will map to what might occur to the user when he searches for an answer.

What we need to know is scope, effect, power, upside, downside, general process, and why we might want to use this facility both in absolute terms and in comparison to similar products from other vendors.

In-app guides should not be the first line of help; that task should be handled by guided tours or overlays. Instead, in-app guides should be a reference for detailed information on using complex functions.

The term personalization describes the decoration or embellishment of persistent objects.

Windows gives users a practical ability to change the system font, too. Personalization is idiosyncratically modal (discussed a bit later in this chapter): People either love it, or they don’t. You must accommodate both categories of users.

Tools for personalizing must be simple and easy to use, giving users a visual preview of their selections. Above all, they must be easy to undo. A dialog box that lets users change colors should offer a function that returns everything to the factory settings.

Giving users the ability to decorate their personal applications is both fun and potentially useful as a navigational aid.

On the other hand, moving the persistent objects themselves can hamper navigation.

Adding decoration to persistent objects helps navigation, whereas moving persistent objects hinders navigation. The term configuration describes moving, adding, or deleting persistent objects.