The final scenario is a help system for the advanced user who is familiar with the application and its workings. To be honest, apart from having a detailed reference to hand over by means of Windows help files, there’s not a lot more support that you can give. However, experienced users tend to use an application in habitual ways. Not only are they not using all of the functions and facilities available, but they are not using the system in the best and most efficient manner. Are you a competent Word user who has found one way to do something and always does it that way? You might someday find that there is a better way of doing that task that could have saved ages if only you’d known about it. This illustrates the value of good training at the outset—good habits can be learned early and used throughout the lifetime of the application. For example, 80 percent of the calls to Microsoft’s Wish Line are for features that already exist in the product!
Another interesting phenomenon of experienced users is that they tend to find it more difficult to break those ingrained habits and learn new functions as the application is upgraded. Using Word as an example again, I use Word 97 in the same manner as I used Word 2. I haven’t a clue as to what all of the extra functions do (unless they are obvious). This means that over time, you’ll have users who are expert at some things and novices at others. Another excellent illustration of this is Visual Basic 5. As the functionality expands, it becomes more and more difficult to keep up-to-date with Visual Basic, let alone be an expert in all the areas that it now covers.