Up-to-Speed Aids can help immensely in turning newbies into proficient users of your service. The new Google Wave project may be confusing to many people, but from the home page, you are only a click away from the support page which has a clearly-labeled link to a ~5 minute video which tells and shows you exactly how to take advantage of 15 of the features of the service. By providing this primer/crash course/whatever you want to call it, the designer(s) have been able to launch a fairly complex product without leaving users in the dark.
Many software applications attempt something similar, by showing a small window with a randomly selected "tip" upon startup, informing the user of something they may not have known.
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On the surface, I think the video is a nice help. But really, it's just a crutch for design that may not be intuitive enough. Know what i mean?
ReplyDeleteIt's like programming a clock on a VCR: just because it comes with an instruction book doesn't mean it's designed well.