The buttons that appear at the top of a task Help topic window are defined by your Help file. At a minimum, you should provide a button that displays the Help Topics browser dialog box, a Back button to return the user to the previous topic, and buttons that provide access to other functions, such as Copy and Print.
To provide access to the Help Topics browser dialog box, include a Help Topics button. This displays the Help Topics browser window on the tabbed page that the user was viewing when the window was last displayed. Although this is the most common form of access to the Help Topics browser window, alternatively you can include buttons, such as Contents and Index, that correspond to the tabbed pages to provide the user with direct access to those pages when the dialog box is displayed.
As with context-sensitive Help, when writing task Help information topics, make them complete, but brief. However, in task Help topics, focus on "how" information rather than "what" or "why." Task Help should assist the user in completing a task, not try to document everything there is to know about a topic. If there are multiple alternatives, pick one method — usually the simplest, most common method for a specific procedure. If you want to include information on alternative methods, provide access to them through other choices or commands.
If you keep the procedure to four or fewer steps, the user will not need to scroll the window. Avoid introductory, conceptual, or reference material in the procedure.
Also, take advantage of the context of a procedure. For example, if a property sheet includes a slider control that is labeled "Slow" at one end and "Fast" at the other, be concise. Say "Move the slider to adjust the speed" instead of "To increase the speed, move the slider to the right. To decrease the speed, move the slider to the left." If you refer to a control by its label, capitalize each word in the label, even though the label has only the first word capitalized. This helps distinguish the label from the rest of your text.
Optionally, you can include a Related Topics button in your topic window to provide access to other topics. When the user chooses this button, display the Topics Found dialog box (as shown in Figure 12.14).