tfosorciM.org

Office 2003 Help needs to be improved

I think a lot of users are finding the Office 2003 Help a disappointment. I know that I am.

The primary reason for many peoples' disappointment is that the Office 2003 Help is often excruciatingly slow. I haven't done any tests on differences in performance of individual Office 2003 products but for OneNote and InfoPath, two Office 2003 products which I am using daily and consult Help most often, a typical time to load the Help Table of Contents is up to 15 seconds. Similar delays occur when navigating into Help folders.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Office 2003 Help Malfunctioning , performance was particularly bad after the Office 2003 product was released to the public. I hoped at that time that the performance would improve over time, but in practice it is still very slow ... far too slow.

The idea of having Help files that are frequently updated is a good one - in theory. My suspicious mind has had the unworthy thought that Microsoft are pushing customers towards "software as service" whether or not it makes sense for the customer in terms of improved customer experience.

The implementation of delivery of Help files that are up-to-the-second is, for the last several months at least, poor.

I suggest several ways to improve the user experience. And it does need to be improved, in my opinion.

First, add a user-configurable option that allows, at user option, all Help files to be downloaded in the background. A "Check for new Help files at startup" check box might do the necessary. Presumably it would make most sense to only download changed Help files, so minimising load on the Help servers.

Then, again possibly user configurable, the user gets instant access to the Help files on his/her own hard disc. If there isn't enough information there, let the user have the option to go to the Help servers to get the very latest Help file on that topic. I suspect that only a tiny percentage would choose the option.

Another aspect of the situation that would need to be configurable is that only regular Help files would be automatically downloaded. Help material such as video, audio, Flash presentations etc would only be opened at specific user request due to bandwidth considerations and Help server load.

Oh, and a final point or two, while I am on the topic. It makes sense to me to split the Help task pane into two. One for searching and the other general fluff on the current front page of the Help task pane. Another for the Help Table of Contents - and, as a bonus, add a Search box to that latter task pane too. It is common to look at a topic and wonder if there is more on a particular topic mentioned there. Why does the user have to switch to the front page of the Help task pane to search on that topic? It just seems inefficient to me.

Improved speed and improved usability should result. And, hopefully, improved customer satisfaction.