User Assistance is a general term for guided assistance to a user of a software product. The phrase incorporates all forms of help available to a user. Now assistance can automatically perform procedures or step users through the process of running those steps of the procedure, both based on the context of the question. The term is broader than, whilst at the same time incorporating, Online help. Online help is topic-oriented procedural or reference information delivered through Computer software. User assistance is more global and more dynamic, and includes procedural and tutorial information.
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What it does
User assistance provides information to improve a person's experience interacting with software. This can include describing the user interface, but also focuses on how to help the user to best apply the software capabilities to their needs. User assistance can be considered a component of the broader category of User experience. User experience design is a subset of the field of Experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user's perception
Devices
User assistance employs a number of devices including, but not limited to, Help, wizards, tutorials, printed manuals (and their PDF equivalents), and user interface text. A wizard is a User interface element where the user is presented with a sequence of dialog boxes. Academia In British academic parlance a tutorial is a small class of one or only a few Students in which the Tutor (a Lecturer User assistance professionals also contribute to enterprise knowledge-bases and content management systems. A content management system ( CMS) is a computer application used to create edit manage and publish content in a consistently organized fashion
Skills Required
Effective user assistance development requires a variety of communication skills. These include writing, editing, task analysis, and subject matter expert (SME) interviewing. Task analysis is the analysis of how a Task is accomplished including a detailed description of both manual and mental activities task and element durations task frequency A Subject Matter Expert (SME is a person who is an expert in a particular area Since the user assistance profession is directly involved with software development, the discipline often requires an understanding of UI design, usability testing, localization, testing, quality assurance, instructional design, scripting/programming, and accessibility. The user interface (or Human Computer Interface) is the aggregate of means by which people&mdash the users '&mdash interact with the System Quality assurance, or QA for short refers to planned and systematic production processes that provide confidence in a product's suitability for its intended purpose "Scripting" redirects here For other uses see Script.
Forms
Instruction Manual
For information related to this topic, see Instruction manual (computer and video games)
A traditional form of user assistance is via a user manual, which is either distributed with the product in paper form, or electronically. Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon printing upon or packaging Typical features of a user manual include installation procedures, a guide of how to use the software, as well as a disclaimer stating the licencing status of the software. Details of a helpline may also be available.
Online help
For more information on this topic, see Online help
Helplines
For information related to this topic, see Helpline
External links
Online help is topic-oriented procedural or reference information delivered through Computer software. A helpline was originally a Telephone service which offers help to those that callDapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic