While I firmly believe that the length of your instructional text is almost always inversely proportionate to the usability of your product, I also believe that the right help text at the right place and time can be invaluable to the usability of a web site or application.

Why External or Lengthy Help Text is Bad

If you have so much help text that you need to put it in an external document, you’re probably in trouble. Putting your help text in external files is not only inconvenient for users, but it also carries with it a reasonable likelihood that it won’t get updated when the site does. This is really just exposing a bigger flaw in that help text is generally treated seperately and as an afterthought from the site or application.

A less obvious but equally important problem of using external help files for a web site or application is context-switching, or the process of looking at one document and then switching to the other, and back and forth, and so on. This becomes tedious at best and is a less than convenient way to interact with a web page.

Similarly, when something is confusing or complicated, it needs significantly more instructional text. For instance, when was the last time you read an instruction manual before bouncing a basketball? Using a pencil? Drinking a glass of water? Not everything can be as simple as that, but the point is that less instructions needed means the product is easier to use.

Too often people will use instructions to compensate for shortcomings in design by explaining how to interact with it. What if it was designed well enough in the first place so that it didn’t need an explanation? Or, more succinctly, don’t use help text as a crutch.

Why Inline Help Text is Good

Most importantly, if you’re putting your help text inline with the rest of your page, it forces you to keep two things in mind. First, it makes you think through your own process and understand how complicated you may or may not have made it. You’re forced to treat your help text and page itself as one complete entity. As a result, the two have to work together successfully, and you lessen your chance of the two not being in sync with each other. Second, due to screen real estate constraints, it forces you to keep your help text concise and accurate. So if you find yourself taking up an inordinate amount of the screen, you’ll think twice about whether you’re need to explain a bit too much.

Additionally, you have now saved your user from having to jump around, search documents, alt+tab, or whatever they may be doing with external help files. You’re probably familiar with a more subtle version of inline help text; when sites use a suggested format below a field to help users understand what kind of input is expected. For instance, you may see “mm/dd/yyyy” below a date field or “972-123-4567” below a phone field. Of course, these are small examples and require a seperate discussion in and of themselves, but it gives you an idea.

The amount of help text you need has several other dependencies. For instance, when screen real estate is at a premium, you might not have as much room to explain your interface. This could be more important to power users than basic users as power users would be more familiar with the instructions, and not need to see them all of the time. Additionally, keep in mind that even though you may have power users, not all tasks are commonly repeated tasks. Those tasks might be better off with the inline instructions in cases where most of the site or application is frequently used and needs less help text.

Another thing to keep in mind is that forcing yourself to write shorter text, can sometimes cause you to write help text that isn’t as good. Just because it’s shorter, doesn’t mean it’s better. In order to trim your text, you may be cutting out the important part. Just don’t over do it.

Also, Try not to rely on using relative location references in your help text. For example, don’t say, “Please fill out one of the two fields below.” Instead, say “Please fill out either your e-mail address or phone number.” Especially in the current days of (X)HTML & CSS, your help text may be above your field today, and to the right of it tomorrow.

There’s a delicate balance, but if used correctly, a little help text in the right place could save you a couple of support phone calls or get a few more transactions or even better.