Text-Based User Support

Overview | Help in Launchpad | Onscreen Texts | Titles and Field Labels

Text-based help is usually associated with the notion of documentation. However, as users rarely read documentation, other types of help need to be offered to users. This is especially true for the target users of web applications, namely untrained and casual users.

Overview

There are a number of text-based supports available for helping users to accomplish their tasks. From top to bottom the different support mechanisms increase in importance for the usability of an application, but use less text:

Help area in the Workplace
Onscreen Texts
Titles and Field Labels
Screen Layout

Role of Screen Layout

Your main goal is a self-descriptive application, which does not need additional explanations. Design the screens according to the natural flow of control, as it is determined by the task. Do not rely on help texts and documentation in order to overcome a bad interface design.

Help in Launchpad

The mySAP.com Workplace provides a help area for displaying help which replaces the LaunchPad. The help area appears, when users click the Help link in the IAC header; it is closed when the users chooses the Close button on top of the text in the help area.

	Launchpad Header	Easy Web Transaction Header
	Launchpad	Easy Web Transaction

Figure 1: IAC in Workplace with launchpad to the left and help off

	Launchpad Header	Easy Web Transaction Header
	Help in Launchpad	Easy Web Transaction

Figure 2: IAC in Workplace with help on: help replaces the launchpad

Use

The help area is primarily intended for presenting Development News. This describes the purpose of an IAC and is primarily targeted at first-time users.

Do not use the help area for instructions like step-by-step procedures. As the help area is detached from the work area, it is typically ignored by users. In addition, because of the spatial separation there is no direct link between help texts and screen elements like fields and pushbuttons. So users may have problems in assigning steps to interface elements.

Onscreen Texts

Experience shows that online help and written documentation are rarely used. Thus the best help might be no help at all. Such an approach, however, requires that the user interface is transparent and self-explaining.

To make the user interface self-explaining it is necessary to include more text, and, if appropriate, diagrams, or pictures on screens or pages. Such applications with "integrated instructions" show up already on some websites.

Introductory, or instructional texts can be introduced on the screen that refer to:

Single elements (fields)
Groups of elements, and
Pushbuttons

These texts appear on top of the elements they refer to. They may replace explicit step-by-step instructions.

Note: For more information on texts on screens see the section Texts.

Figure 1: Examples for instructional texts (1) above a group of elements, (2) a single element, and (3) a pushbutton group

Introductory Texts Above Field Groups

Introductory text explain the purpose of a group of screen elements.

Example

Use the form below for entering registration data.

Instructions for a Dialog Step Directly above a Field or a Field Group

Instructional texts provide direct hints on how to proceed.

Examples

Enter your E-mail address and address data.
Enter a name or parts of it and select Find.

Instructions For a Dialog Step Directly Above a Pushbutton or Pushbutton Group

Instructions for pushbuttons may explain the choices for the users as well as provide hints with respect to the consequences of certain actions.

Example

Choose Send for submitting your request, choose Back if you want to change your data.

Titles and Field Labels

Apart from introducing additional text on the interface, you can already include more text in commonly used screen elements, for example:

Application title
Area titles
Group titles (group boxes and groups)
Field labels

Use concise and precise texts for these elements but do not be too short, if a sentence, or phrase can be helpful.

Note: See Titles of Web Applications and Groups in the SAP Reference Lists (on the SAP Design Guild) for details on formulating titles. See Texts for Input and Output Elements for texts in field labels, and see Selection Elements for texts in selection elements like radiobuttons, checkboxes and dropdown listboxes - both are also in the SAP Reference Lists.

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