Usability Standard 10:
Provide Help and Documentation

Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.20

Like the best software, a Web site should offer immediate context-sensitive help wherever needed. This might take the form of instructional text right on the page or a secondary popup window that appears when the user requests it. The text should be jargon-free and simple but not condescending.

A live human provides the best help. Some e-commerce sites like Lands End and Ashford.com now use instant messaging to place the user in realtime contact with a customer service representative. The user and rep can view the same pages at the same time, passing URLs back and forth automatically.

Interactive help is next best. A help application like NativeMinds uses a database of keywords and information to approximate the experience of interacting with a person. But it's only useful if site staff continually review and improve the database to address changing user needs. And the database itself is primitive, unable to form its own connections or piece together fully customized responses.

A Frequently Asked Questions page is useful for smaller sites, but an FAQ section quickly mushrooms to unusable size on larger sites. Even when carefully broken down to small, topic-specific sections, the ability to search or scan for a particular topic is limited.

Every page should include a link to a feedback form allowing users to contact a person and receive a reply within a reasonable time -- perhaps one or two days for most sites, or a few hours for an e-commerce site.