Results of the 2009 Help & Manual user survey

Salzburg/Austria, May 26th 2009

We are happy to be able to announce the results of the 2009 Help & Manual User survey conducted from May 18 to May 25, 2009. We received 592 responses (555 full responses, 37 responses with some question omitted). We sent survey invitations to all registered users with recent licenses for Help & Manual version 5.

Usage

Q 1: How long have you been using Help & Manual 5?

Not too suprisingly, most users who have responded to the survey, have been using Help & Manual 5 for more than 6 months.

Q 2: What do you use Help & Manual for primarily?

This question only allowed one answer, it should have been configured for multiple options. Quite a lot of our customers use Help & Manual for many different tasks, from documenting software to maintaining knowledge bases to writing proposals.

Q 3: Do you use the multi-user authoring features of Help & Manual?

The responses here were very encouraging : 11% of our customers use the multi-user editing features and a full 29% write documentation in teams.

Translation

Q 4: Do you translate your documentation into other languages?

Wow! These responses were a surprise. Not only do 24% of you already create documentation in multiple languages, another 21% plan to start translating in the future. This means that we are going to redouble our efforts to improve the already good translation support features in Help & Manual to cater to your needs.

Q 5: If you translate your projects, how do you do it?

This question was optional and a relatively large number of users did not respond. Interestingly, the 32% who responded were actually a larger group than those who said they were already translating their documents. The figures indicate that many customers use a mix of in-house translation and external translators and translation agency services.

Q 6: What tools are used for translating your projects?

This question was also optional. The majority of customers use Help & Manual itself for translation. Standard XML editors are not too popular for external translation.

Q 7: How often do you translate your projects or project updates?

The last question in this group was about translation intervals. The results here show that for many users, translation is an ongoing process that never stops.

Import and publishing formats

Q 8: Help & Manual can import six different formats. Do you find this sufficient?

While a large group of 63% finds the import functions sufficient for their needs, about a third wants more than that. OpenOffice and Microsoft DocX were among the favorites, other import formats requested included FrameMaker, PDF and Flare/RoboHelp. We will consider this in future updates!

Q 9: Publishing formats - does Help & Manual cover everything?

This question allowed multiple answers and included a feedback field. Here too, a majority of 58% feel that the current output formats are sufficient. But 28% say that they want improved HTML-based output, particularly Webhelp. And more than a third said they would appreciate improved printed manual/PDF output. Here, the focus was on additional features for the Manual Designer for printed manuals and PDF documents. Some of these suggestions are already going to be included in version 5.2 due to be released in June!

User interface and overall satisfaction

Q 10: Editing features, style handling, user interface - what do you like or dislike about Help & Manual?

This question also supported multiple responses. We are aware that there is always room for improvements, so it was good to learn that most users tend more towards an MS Word style interface, a significantly smaller number favored an HTML-style editor. The detailed responses to the next question included many requests for features encompassing all aspects of the program.

Q 11: Suggestions - how can we make Help & Manual better for you?

We are still working on the analysis of the results here. :-) We received a total of 233 individual responses, many of them very detailed. Thank you very much for taking the time to give us such comprehensive and carefully reasoned feedback!

Q 12: How happy, over all, are you with Help & Manual 5?

You were the judge! How well are we doing? We certainly cannot make everyone perfectly happy - particularly as some of the suggestions are mutually exclusive. Even so, the 99% approval rating we received in response to this question is really not all that bad. But we can certainly do better and we will. We want you to love Help & Manual, nothing less will satisfy us!

Summary

We would like to thank all of you who responded to this survey! It has been a fascinating experience for us to learn what you are using our tool for, how you use it and what you like and dislike about it. It is also very helpful to learn what we need to focus on.

Translation and multi-language help files are clearly an important issue for many of you. We are going to respond to this directly, focusing on further improving the translation capabilities and project management features of Help & Manual.

Your feedback on the import and export functions and capabilities was also much appreciated! We will consider your wishes in upcoming and future updates.

What was really overwhelming were your responses to the suggestions category, where we asked how we can make Help & Manual better for you! It is difficult to summarize these responses, as many of the 233 suggestions were very detailed. In some cases we had to wince when we read requests for features and functions that have already been available in the program for some time. We are thus also going to work to improve the documentation and our communication with you.

On the news front, another free update with many new features is in the works: Help & Manual version 5.2 is scheduled for release in June 2009! Alongside working on the last refinements and testing of this update we are also going to try to implement some of your suggestions. This includes improvements to the Manual Designer for PDF and printed manuals with new features, many improvements to the user interface and some nice new features you have been asking for. Stay tuned for this update and don't miss it!

Thank you all who participated!