Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Office 2007 help, someday maybe we can move beyond keyword matching

Type "edit background image" into Power Point's help and this is what you get:


Advent calendar, really?

There is a check box on the View ribbon that allows you to "hide background image" - so naturally when I click that and it makes the items I want to change disappear - I assume that it is a background image I need to change. Hence the chosen search terms.

But, alas it really isn't an image at all. It is a text box on the master sheet. Took me a few clicks and sorting out a red herring to get the text changed.

I wonder if help could be made smarter and see that I'm looking at the master sheet and I'm typing those search terms and .... well I think you see where I"m going. I'd like an AI help system so that it seems like I have a Power Point expert leaning over my shoulder. One who I can ask how do I do such-n-such? This "person" looks at what I'm trying to do and maybe through a mouse gesture and keypress combo, I'd get nearly human style help.

Sounds a bit like clippy - but smarter.



I'd like a video walk through of what I'm trying to do or a relevant help text to come up. Something that tells me the page I'm looking at doesn't have a background image, so unless I'm really looking to "add a background image", "edit background image" makes no sense.

Now that would be helpful.

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