Abstract
Many current (online) help systems fail because users refuse to use them or, even if they do so, they do not perceive them as helpful. There is an obvious gap between the intentions of the help content authors and the achievement of objectives concerning the perceived usefulness by help users. Problems may be divided into psychological and implementation issues. On the psychological side users are often seriously challenged with understanding the instructions given by the system, which usually is not adequately adapted to user's prior knowledge or the vocabulary of a lay person. This problem of expert-lay communication is strengthened by the implementation problem of missing feedback channels. As a result, help systems do often leave users in isolation with their problems. The current article aims to address these issues by presenting an information architecture for an online help system which addresses aspects of communication between authors and users. The approach combines earlier models of design patterns with features for user contribution from social software and design principles in multimedia learning.
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