Re: Question about offering solutions here (head up, MVPs!)

Cindy Winegarden wrote:

It always amazes me that people can find newsgroups but not find Help.
However, I think that people think of searching Help as searching
through an index and not knowing what things are called, etc. so they
just plain don't expect to find what they're after.


Part of the reason for the underuse of Help is that in prior versions of
Windows, Help wasn't much help. Many people who have had poor experience
with Help in the past don't realize how much it has been improved.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup


Imagine thinking
that you had to read a two-inch book to find an answer. Also, they
might not realize that the Help (specifically Office) is pretty
clearly explained. For Office it is, but for Windows there is a lot
of computer terminology that people are just plain afraid of.

I personally have great luck finding things in Help, the MSDN
Library, the Web, etc. because I just seem to know what keywords to
use and what order to put them in. My husband, on the other hand, is
a left hander who thinks differently than other people. So many times
he can't find things on a web page/site that I can find right away.
It seems that my mind works just like the site designer's does, and
his is so different that he's just plain lost. And by the way, he's a
network/desktop support person so he's not a computer troglodyte.

Some people are not "researchers" like you and I are. They're learning
styles are such that they feel they need a human to explain things to
them. Of course, behind all the documentation are humans!

One thing no one has really hit on in this thread is the sense of
"community" Microsoft is seeking to foster in the newsgroups/forums.
They want the friendly, human touch so people feel comfortable and
safe. For example, in many of my answers I add a few extra tidbits
that I would have wanted to know when I was newly working in the same
area of my product or going from a newbie to a Windows and Office
"power user."
I think the important thing is, after you've answered the question
you can say, "By the way, if you click on Office Help, and type your
question in the search box, you will often find just what you're
looking for."


"Doug Kanter" <ancientangler@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3k3Hf.14023$qg.4552@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Some of the questions answered here require pretty involved answers,
so a human response is appropriate. But, many simpler answers can be
easily found in the Windows or Office help systems. For instance, in
the Excel group, someone asked "how do I add a pattern to a cell?" I
directed him to the help system, where typing his exact words
produced an instantaneous answer. Someone else gave him the method
in another message, though. Are we really serving the best interests of
users by spoon-feeding
them answers to the simpler questions? I mean, if your kid says "I
don't remember whether to use 'principal' or 'principle' in this
essay I'm writing", and the dictionary's 3 feet away on the shelf,
do you give the kid the answer, or say "Open the dictionary"? You
know: Teach them to fish (learn) instead of just giving them a fish.


.

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