RE: Tips = Infrequent Use -- BPCS-L

Thanks for the good points helping me re-think trade-offs

Al Macintyre wrote:
> Thus it can be a good idea to add some reminder text to User Menu right
> above or below the text line for that menu option.

Roger Wolf said
> Do you have users that have a book in front of them when they work??
> Mine want to have as little as possible.

Susan Kregar asked
> You have users that actually read the screen??

Al = Yes - most of them - however, Roger's point is well taken that screen
clutter can tend to place us in a position of having to scroll a lot between
menu options.

I am now thinking that the prudent course would be to arrange options off of
User Menus like this

_____ # Whatever = Do It
_____ # Whatever = H E L P  Information 

This would serve the dual role of not cluttering up the main menu options, and
give users access to on-line help when many forget that HELP is only a
keystroke away.  Of course we are still going to have people who forget to
look at the HELP, take the option, and get stuck.  At that point, if they have
more than one session, they can get another one to the menu option & look at
the HELP from the menu, if they have forgotten they can do HELP from the
Prompt.  

The issue is one of out of sight out of mind.  Use something or lose memory
that it is an option.

Roger Wolf wrote:
> I would suggest modifying the help text for that program instead of the
> screen. The User could then just press F1 to find out the information.

Susan Kregar asked
> You have users that actually use the Help text??

Al = very few - Susan's point is also well taken 

The biggest time-waster at our shop, from perspective of forgetting that HELP
is real close, is the vast majority of my users need a reminder on bottom of
normal screen F1=Help or they forget that is an option, and we need to do
something about access to 2nd level help on error messages - the concept of
placing cursor on the message & pressing F1=Help manages to fly by 95% of my
users.  When I am wearing my help desk hat & a user calls me with some problem
& I am looking at their job log, I often forget I am talking to a user, who
suffers from this kind of mental lapse.

Al - One error message to you was ________ & I read that off the screen & at
that point you took an "R" - it was saying you could not get into the record
because Brenda was updating it - did you talk to Brenda at that point, and
find out if she was finished?

User - I didn't get any such message - where are you getting that information?

I walk the user through how to get at 2nd level support, Oh this is neat
he/she says, a wonderful aid --- then an hour or day later same scenario,
totally forgot how you get to 2nd level help.  It is like I want to add
something that is flashing at one end of all error messages to remind users
how to get at the whole story, or figure out how to make it so they don't have
to move the cursor - some other function key that you use to get at 2nd level
text if there is an error message on your screen.

Susan Kregar mentioned
> Sometimes doing a print screen is a better option.
> Input the info into the fields and then do print screen 
> (or cut and paste for GUI) before hitting Enter.

I do this with print on hold then SEU import from spool,
so there are illustrations of menu options & prompts & so forth
included with text on what we do why as a check list for people
who need that kind of help.  But for infrequently used applications, 
any how-to instructions have been misplaced at time of trying to figure out
what to do.

Al Macintyre
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