Reduce support costs and boost sales with better help.

• Better online help and documentation can radically reduce your support overheads.

• Even if you produce an outstanding application users will be frustrated if they don't understand it.

• Your trial users need to understand your application quickly. Help helps!

• Simple applications can get by with little or no help, but if you have a more complex program good help is as important as good code.

• Nobody tests your application more thoroughly than a help author, and they will also approach it from the perspective of a normal user.

  
  

Special Tongue-in-Cheek Report:

Curb exploding sales, discourage over-eager users and keep your support staff busy...

Selling shareware can really put your taxes up; once the applications are ready you have no production costs, so every registration is like money for nothing. Pretty soon you're in a higher bracket, and the Revenue Service is beating at your door demanding more moolah.

And since producing software is so much fun your products have gotten really good, and too many users have started to become over-enthusiastic. They tell their friends, they tell their friends and so it goes.

Then there's the problem of your support staff...

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