Providing directions and help

Every application should provide information about itself through self-help features, and Domino applications offer several techniques to do this.

Help should answer questions and assist users in responding to features of the application. The upside of application help is that with it users can figure out for themselves what to do or what went wrong. The downside is that many of them cannot or will not read the help.

Nevertheless, provide as much help and guidance as possible within the constraints of the development effort. Make sure to spell and punctuate properly using words and grammar suitably plain for your users. This is a good area to ask for assistance from a technical writer, trainer, or publicist.

Add meaningful labels and guidance text

Just about every form shows labels and guidance text. Buttons, fields, column titles, and links should be sensibly named. Use common, well-understood labels for common functions (for example, "Save" instead of "Commit...