Mike Benner: Snapz Pro and Canvas Wiki, FTW!!!!

Snapz Pro and Canvas Wiki, FTW!!!!

Nov 1 by Michael Benner

First off, I want to thank Ray Camden for the GREAT and under rated Coldfusion Wiki (Ray enjoy those items from your wishlist).

OK, formalities out of the way, I want to talk about a slick user help system using those tools and talking users into helping themselves. Every time a user would ask me a question regarding the new system we are beta testing, I would not only walk them through it, but I would also use Snapz Pro and record the steps (including that Barry White voice of mine, ok, maybe more like Pee Wee Herman, but that is not the point) for the issue at hand.

At this point, I upload the video to the wiki and add some verbiage to the page. The users are aware of this and have started checking the wiki before contacting me. This spurred something. They began asking for updates to the "help" system and for how-tos that were beyond the scope of my current project (How to Use Firefox, Install Quicktime, etc). I explained to them, the concept of a wiki and show them how to use Canvas Wiki. At this point I went to some of the more experienced users in the company and asked them to help me by training someone and modifying the wiki accordingly.

This went really well, and before I new it even some of the newer users were adding items in the wiki. I have decided I will be offering a reward at the end of the year for the user that not only inputs the most data, but the most valuable data.

I personally have always struggled to write proper help docs and when I am actually writing them, I find they become incomplete as I move on to another project programming and leave the help to someone else that really doesn't want to do it either. This might be that magic item for me. Let the users write their own help system. How ingenious (not my idea, it was referred to me years ago)... But up until Canvas Wiki and Snapz Pro I never new how to make it happen.

How do you write your help docs? Do you let the users help? I would be interested in other experiences that might help ease what for me can be the hardest part of the project.