This text is designed to bridge the gap between research and practice, by emphasizing practice from a conceptual viewpoint. The authors discuss and review the literature on online help and they provide a cognitive perspective on the design and evaluation issues.

Part 1 Online help in context: designing usable systems; helping the user; online help defined; conclusion; an overview of the book. Part 2 Medium of delivery and the design process: description of the study and its participants; interview analysis; core issues influencing the design of online help; constraints on the design of online documentation; the relationship between online and hardcopy documentation; training writers to develop online documentation; the writer's responsibilities; issues and principles for online document design. Part 3 A task model for online help: the audience for online help - what we have learned from research in document design; the audience for online help -what we have learned from research in interface design; a task model for online help. Part 4 Understanding the design process: characterizing our participants; characterizing help design teams; the design process elaborated; an overview of the design process; summary of design process findings. Part 5 An overview of evaluation requirements and options: defining a "good" help system; the audience for the evaluation?; sources of evaluation data; effective evaluation strategies. Part 6 The help design evaluation questionnaire (HDEQ): goals for the design; evaluating content versus design; evaluating the design of online help; the HDEQ questions. Part 7 Findings from the evaluation of help systems: evaluation goals; overall ratings; appendix - the help design evaluation questionnaire.