To create a well-designed Help system requires skill. The skill in Help authoring is the ability to adapt means to ends. Its working tools are words, pictures, and hypertext links, which are employed in endless ways to produce a variety of effects. Its audience is the user’s mind, which must not only be instructed but also kept interested and on track.
Help authoring has its basic skills; it also has its higher effects of style and of individual skill. This chapter can deal with some of the basic skills; the higher skills, however, Help authors can be trusted to discover on their own.