IT:AD:Patterns:Help is for Failures Strategy
Summary
If the app you design requires a Help Doc or an online failure, it's an admission of failure as to your UI. Plain and simple.
If you had really wrestled with UX principles in order to express
- not what the task is
but instead
- how to get to the desired result
you would not have to need a help doc.
I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it's hard.
But it doesn't change the fact that the UI is not self-explanatory.
Solutions
But if you are going to write a help doc, please use:
- a Wiki system.
- use Markdown for longevity reasons, and export to the current preferred format.