C3: Getting Help

A key requirement of being technologically adaptable is knowing when and where to find help. You might be able to figure something out on your own in an hour or so, but why should you when you can find the information within five minutes?

We have several places we can look for help. Many programs have help systems. Some are good, some are worthless, and some are just problematic. Microsoft has good help; however, they often start you in the middle and assume you know how to get to that point. The newer versions are better at guiding you. For many years, Adobe did not provide help systems. They now have some help, but it is rudimentary at best. Open-source programs often do not have help unless volunteers have created it.

Crowdsourcing is the new trend in technical support. Software and hardware companies are basically allowing users to write their help files through knowledge bases and help forums. That means the help available is often spotty and poorly written. Yet, these sources are still good places to look. The chance of finding what you need in an understandable format is small, but you never know. If you are lucky, the company has a technical writer overseeing the knowledge base and making the help files easier to follow.

One of the best places to find help is the web. Google is your friend. Experts and consultants will often write up procedures and place them on the web to advertise their knowledge. Students might write up instructions for a technical writing course. People share tips and tricks in searchable forums and the like. It can take some practice to delve through the information to find your answers, but you will soon learn how to parse the available information.

How do you know what terms to use when searching? We will get to that in the next unit.