Won't It Please, Please Help Me? The (Un)availability and (Lack of) Necessity of Help Systems in Mobile Applications

Abstract

The increasing dissemination of mobile devices has turned everybody into potential users of mobile applications. Due to the presumed ease of use of these applications along with the uncommon use of their help systems, most do not offer help systems within the applications and those that do are usually accessible only through Internet links. This double presumption that users do not need help because the application is easy to use and users have access to Internet everywhere - may negatively affect not only the use of the application in some (or various) situations, but even worse may cause users' to misunderstand their goals and possibilities. To explore this topic, we present a user study of 14 users about mobile applications and their (lack of) help systems. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.