Help in NAV--How We Can Make Things Better

As an observer, it seems to me that Microsoft's Business Solutions division is currently undergoing something of a revolution.

The recently released community technology preview (CTP3) of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 (due out in general release next fall) is one good example. Microsoft is listening to what we as users and partners have to say about the product and is taking action. Dan Brown in his recent blog posting on the NAV Team Blog, writes that the stakeholders of this product are passionate and it is this passion and enthusiasm that helps to drive its overall excellence. This passion is evident from the team and the CTP certainly looks astounding.

Another example of the new listening and caring MBS is the recent posting by the NAV User Education team with examples of the improvements they are making to the online help for the upcoming release. They say they welcome any suggestions, concerns, hopes and fears and even provide an e-mail address to contact them directly.

This got me thinking about the online help in NAV as it is today and what we could do to make it better. This article is adapted from the thoughts I sent to the user education team in response to that blog post and it includes some quotes from an excellent book by Ronald G. Ross entitled "Principles of the Business Rule Approach."

1.1 We want real help, not pretend help.

I know I am not the only person to draw attention to this, but the first problem for me is what I am calling the "Guessing Student" help problem. It ...