1. Introduction

All applications have two basic types of user:

'Beginners' who are mostly unfamiliar with the application or 'Experienced' who know a lot about how to use that particular application. Their requirements are often different.

For instance the beginner user needs to be helped in order to use the application properly.  

They might not know how to do simple tasks such as starting a new document or project.

They might have a little more knowledge but not know how to use many of the features and tools within the application.

They might feel overwhelmed, anxious or incapable of using the software and completing the task.

They often need help and guidance to show them how to do things and to help alleviate their anxiety.

On the other hand, an experienced user knows how to use the majority of the features and tools available in the software. 

They feel confident and comfortable completing most of the tasks and if they don’t know how to do something, they are happy to find the solution out for themselves.

Experienced users want to be able to do things quickly.  They get frustrated being ‘hand-held’ through simple tasks.

Read through the next two pages to find out some of the features which can be offered to beginners in order to help make their experience using the software a little easier and more straightforward.