Re: Apple Help Interface Guidelines
Re: Apple Help Interface Guidelines
- Subject: Re: Apple Help Interface Guidelines
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 13:03:58 -0400
on 03-08-25 11:37 AM, Chad Armstrong at email@hidden wrote:
>
Since Apple is such as user-oriented company with its products, I was
>
curious if they have any guidelines on how to design the Help Viewer
>
interface. I did find this page:
>
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/
>
AquaHIGuidelines/AHIGHelp/index.html but it does not accurately
>
describe how the Help pages should look. Even when I look at various
>
Apple Help pages (iChat vs. iCal), they have quite a different look to
>
them. Then there are other Help systems which are quite messy
>
looking...just slapped together and that's about it.
>
>
Does anyone have a rule of thumb about how they should look? Headers,
>
images, fonts, etc?
In the days of Mac OS 9 and earlier, Apple offered very explicit, even rigid
Help style guidelines, which were documented in a bunch of tutorials and
documents in the Apple Help SDK.
In Mac OS X, the style of Apple's own Help files changed radically, but as
far as I know they never updated the style guides. My personal conclusion is
that you're freeer to do it your own way.
I kind of liked the old styles, so I tend to stick fairly close to them.
Among other things, they tend to provide more detailed information to the
user. In my view, the current style of Apple's own Help contains far too
little information. I am often left without a clear answer as to how to do
something.
There are still some tutorials from Apple, which you can find through the
Apple Developer Documentation site. Last time I looked, one of the tutorials
was still in the old style, and one was in the new styled. There wasn't any
systematic documentation. That was a while ago, so perhaps things have
changed now.
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
http://www.quecheesoftware.com
The AppleScript Sourcebook -
http://www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com
Vermont Recipes -
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes
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