Pattern 17: Context-sensitive help *
AKA:

Back to Diagram 1 - Getting started Back to Diagram 2 - Useability Back to Diagram 3 - Adding detail Back to Diagram 4 - Workflow/security

View sensitizing image - Office assistant
How many paper-clips does it take to change a light bulb?

You have ESTABLISHed THE USE CASES (3).

The utility of help messages depends on the context in which they occur and, in particular, on the task or workflow that the user is engaged in.

Therefore

Make help messages dependent on context and workflow step, if any. Display the use case as part of the help.

Use ACCEPTABLE WORDING (50) when creating help messages as well as when writing content.

Contributors and sources
Richard Dué, Detlef Vollmann

Discussion - forces - known uses

This is such a well-know and general pattern it is hardly worth elaborating further. However two things must be said.
Firstly, if you are having to provide help at all it may be that you would be better employed in making the feature of the site concerned more intuitive and more in line with the users’ mental models and previous experiences.

Secondly, you cannot establish the context fully unless you understand the use cases completely. This is especially true for workflow sites where users are carrying out transactions. The context then includes the stage of the transaction reached, whether commitments have been incurred, security status, whether the transaction has failed at any point so far and what kind of user is this likely to be. Perhaps failure was a result of a line failure or site outage. Provide feedback on this if possible. You should also inform the user of alternative paths through the transaction (if any) – maybe they went down the wrong route in the first place. Rather than helping them complete the transaction it may be better to advise going back to the start in such a case, but always explain why you are offering the advice being given.

This pattern is related to Tidwell’s OPTIONAL DETAIL ON DEMAND.

Example
It is extremely common to be told that you have filled a form in incorrectly. Many sites still don’t tell you why. A message like ‘parsing error’ is no use to man nor beast. You might even tailor you 404 message (see 404.com for some amusing examples).

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