Thursday, March 09, 2006

Benefits of making a Help file

The creation of a Help file amounts to describing exactly what every button and checkbox does, and why.

It is my experience (and this time is no exception), that this forces me to re-consider certain implementation details. I even find bugs that way. A few days into the making of the Help file, and I already have done some significant coding alongside because I suddenly "saw the light" in terms of little inconsistencies here & there.

A Help file is a wonderful way of soliciting user feedback as well, because without a Help file, users will not easily suggest keyboard shortcuts, for example, because they suspect they exist but they just can't find them.

MoyoGo's Help file will be divided into two parts: A complete description of what everything does and why, and a "how-to" section.