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6 - Easing Technical Support
The help file includes the program name displayed in large characters, as well as compile time and version information. You should also add a copyright, identifying your company and year written. Version and compile date is extremely important for technical support. For example, you could find a bug in version 1.0, and quickly fix it and release version 1.1. Without version information the customer can view, no one will know for sure that the next bug report isn't the same bug or a different one (such as the bug not completely fixed). For technical support, this information is mandatory.To wrap up the help/about box, just a few thoughts about help information:
- Explain all the non-trivial options - the 'Exit' probably doesn't need to be discussed, but 'Settings' definitively needs to be.
- Avoid technical jargon, unusual language or odd phrasing - the key is simplicity of word and thought.
- Spell and grammar check.
- If possible, let someone try it out, and make a note of what you have to explain. If you need to tell one person, most likely it won't be the last time, so place it in the help file.
- If the program works in an unusual way, use the help file to teach how your program works, to counteract the common 'it doesn't work' tech support call. Of course, making the program more intuitive is better, but if you can't...
If you are unable to do the documentation
yourself, consider hiring someone to do it,
but under no circumstances should you reduce
or avoid this important part of your product.
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