Providing Help

Summary

People often need help to understand complex information and avoid making mistakes. People with cognitive and learning disabilities tend to make mistakes more readily than others, particularly with more complex tasks. To reduce the chance of making a mistake and to help people complete their tasks:

• use plain language for instructions, labels, errors, status messages, and hints to reduce the need for help;
• use plain language for help messages so they are easy to understand;
• provide context-sensitive help, especially for complex tasks;
• provide a way to get human help if possible.

You don’t need to provide site-level help, but if you do, it should be located in the same relative position on any page. It’s always a good idea to offer help and place it where it’s easy to find and when it’s most needed.