AODC day 1 – Feedback and Collaboration in Help « ffeathers — a technical writer’s blog.
Matthew Ellison gave a number of examples of simple feedback mechanisms in existing help systems, where the online system provides a way users can rate their experience of help. Typically, the help system asks if the information was useful, and offers you a text box to provide feedback. Examples are QuickBooks Help, eBay Help, Yahoo Help.
Some more sophisticated examples:
- Adobe Help Viewer, used for FrameMaker, Captivate, RoboHelp. Built on Adobe Air technology. Allows you to add comments, via an optional pane at the bottom of the viewer. You have to sign in with an Adobe ID in order to provide the feedback. You can also choose to keep the comment private i.e. not visible to other users. It also sends a confirmation email when you add a comment, and awards you some Adobe Community Help points. This gives you a warm feeling, said Matthew with his trademark smile
- Help for Adobe Captivate — You can see the comments from other users in the comments window. So users can even start a dialogue with each other via the comments.
- Help for Flare, by MadCap Software, allows the same level of collaboration. The help is delivered in DotNet help format, embedded in the product. At the top of every topic is a bar allowing you to rate the topic. You can rate the topic, see the current rating and provide feedback. You can also see all recent comments for all topics. Matthew comments that the options are not very visible. The help author at MadCap says that it’s not much used, probably because it’s not very visible.
