EBlog
Help!
October 17, 2007 | Posted by: Bob
We’re the experts here so it must be painfully obvious that we don’t need help. But help is exactly what our clients come to us for…so it begs the question “do business blogs need help pages?“
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Categorized in: Observations and Random Musings
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Comments
by Nicholas
Interesting idea, which ties back to Marty’s question of whether web professionals view the web differently than “civilians.”
We - web professionals - tend to think people just know what all this stuff is, how to use it, and what good it does people. Again, though, it depends on your subject matter and audience.
If you are a B2B software company with a blog, do you need to help your readers know what de.licio.us is? Probably not. However, if you’re a knitting supplies store with a blog, those people might need some help figuring commenting, for example, out. (And if I learned anything from the web analytics conference this week, it’s that the only way to know for sure is to ask your actual web site visitors and to test.)
In either case, I think the onus is on those building the sites to make these features - no matter how revolutionary - easy to understand and use.
One other thing, I completely disagree with the linked post’s statement, “the social part of networking online only happens when two people connect in real time.” Sure, communication in real-time enhances the social interaction component, but it is certainly not required.
by Bob
Nicholas said: …do you need to help your readers know what de.licio.us is?”
Yes I do think you need to help these people. The tech readers may know this stuff - but our clients, the executives who run these companies oftentimes do not know this stuff at all. And for us, our audience is the executives.
Now, is a help page on the blog the right answer - I’m not sure.