Mandel: A lot of people latch on to consistency. They believe that, if it's consistent, they'll have something usable. But if it wasn't right to start with, it will be consistently wrong throughout the whole application. Some inconsistencies are a problem; you can see that different people or different groups within the company did it. You can see this across the major Office suites. [Get it right, then] make sure you do it consistently. That's why the third Golden Rule is make the UI consistent.

Users have expectations about what's going to happen, too. Keep the results of interaction the same. If you click on one thing and one action happens, then you click somewhere else that looks just the same, and something different happens, that violates user expectations. A lot of the time that happens because the application is not consistent in the use of buttons or tabs or links or whatever. You expect the button to do one thing, expect the link to go to another page, expect the tab to do another... but it is not always real clear what was supposed to happen.

Interaction architects focus on all the interaction aspects of an application. I just completed a review of a Web site where, in the main navigation area, a click opened a PDF file. The more you do that to your users, the more tentative they become. They are fearful about clicking on anything.

DevSource: Can we talk a little bit about on-screen Help? I've seen a dramatic decline in the amount of local Help data in some applications. Some programs have employed nonstandard methods such as Web-based help, Help searches that lead users to articles online (when their users may be offline or the company server may be down), help that asks users to answer market research questions when they need to get their problems solved, help that comes in PDF files when users may not have Acrobat Reader or may simply find PDF files inconvenient or confusing, and more. What's going on with application Help, and what can developers do to better aid their users with questions about their products?

Mandel: The best thing is to provide the best context help to support the user before they even get to ask for help. Back to the second Golden Rule, about relieving users of memory load: indicate where they are, where they've been, where they're going, and what modes they're in. If you do, that will reduce the need for them to request help. That's a high level goal.

The next question is where do they go and how do they get there. That's field-level help, possibly through a right click or the F1 key. If the application doesn't provide field-level help, then screen-level help — same thing as field-level, except for the screen; then above and beyond: table of contents, search capability — how it's created or how it's stored is not as important as that they get the information.

If I'm on an airplane and need help, I want help. I shouldn't have to be connected to get help. There's a distinction between getting help and doing research. Just providing a PDF file is not acceptable. Nor is interactive as easy to use as Help should be. It's just not user friendly to dump a 50-page user guide on the user when they have a simple question to ask.

Help should be local, but you can say, "To learn more," and then offer Web content. You're being a good citizen and, hopefully driving traffic to your Web site.

You can learn more by checking out resources at Dr. Mandel's site at http://theomandel.com.