The future of User Assistance
User Assistance is a general term for guided assistance to a user of a software product. The phrase incorporates all forms of help available to a user. Now assistance can automatically perform procedures or step users through the process of running those steps of the procedure, both based on the context of the question. The term is broader than, whilst at the same time incorporating, Online help. User assistance is more global and more dynamic, and includes procedural and tutorial information.
User assistance provides information to improve a person's experience interacting with software. This can include describing the user interface, but also focuses on how to help the user to best apply the software capabilities to their needs. User assistance can be considered a component of the broader category of User experience.
User assistance employs a number of devices including, but not limited to, Help, wizards, tutorials, printed manuals (and their PDF equivalents), and user interface text. User assistance professionals also contribute to enterprise knowledge-bases and content management systems.
Effective user assistance development requires a variety of communication skills. These include writing, editing, task analysis, and subject matter expert (SME) interviewing. Since the user assistance profession is directly involved with software development, the discipline often requires an understanding of UI design, usability testing, localization, testing, quality assurance, instructional design, scripting/programming, and accessibility.
