[quoted excerpts from Smashing Magazine, article by Matt Cronin]

Excellent article on a consistently overlooked problem for most web designers – help elements.  A help element is anything that provides the user with assistance in completing a task.  They come in many shapes, sizes and formats but the primary goal is to be unobtrusive but noticeable and, well, helpful.  Most designers/developers look at help elements with trudgery but in many cases it can actually enhance the user experience.

The place we frequently see help elements is in form completion and validation.  Why we somehow can’t provide scripts that reduce error rates in the first place is beyond me, but I suppose in a lot of cases you still have to provide visual cues and alerts to help some users out. 

In HCI we consider that a standard free-form entry is the most volatile of inputs and sure enough, that’s where you’ll encounter the most errors, but don’t neglect the other visual aspects, including external labels, internal (low contrast, like the one shown below) labels, direct manipulation (such as calendar popups). 

The extremes of direct input error handling might be dates and telephone numbers, but here you may need to also consider flow; if within the form you require country, simply provide formats that the user will be more familiar with (such as auto-complete country codes).

From Matt Cronin’s post:

Usability is the Key

With any website design, one strives for usability. Usability is the key factor in the success that a website achieves. Usability is simply about making things easier for your users — and help elements certainly do that. But are your individual help elements themselves usable?

Don’t Confuse the User
Confusing the user contradicts the purpose of the help element, so avoid it. Only put in content that is appropriate to the element. The way you organize content within the help element affects usability. If the element contains a lot of content, use lists and highlight keywords so that the content is easy to scan.

Placement Has a Major Impact
In Web design layout, placement of objects is a top usability consideration. Likewise for help elements, placement affects usability.

Many designers make the mistake of making help elements (i.e. buttons, links, etc.) very small so that they don’t get in the way of the website’s main content. The problem is that they become hard for the user to find. Sure, their small size leaves room for more content, but that won’t help a confused user. Find a balance between subtlety and accessibility.

Also remember that help elements should be optional for the user, not required. Allow the user to choose to get help, instead of immediately showing the element.

Next time you’re designing your site, put some extra consideration into the help elements and see what ideas you can come up with.  Send me some examples of your clever solutions via comment.