Helping users get help

Today I posted a suggestion thread on the jReviews board about making the help content more prominently displayed. I do think it looks really nice now, how it unhides itself when you click it.

But it's just a text link and icon near the top of the page, and to be honest I didn't see it for the longest time...

...then again, even if I had seen it, would I have clicked it?

I probably would have, eventually, when I got desperate (or bored) enough. Until that point, I probably would have assumed that it would be pretty useless except to absolute beginners, and ignored it. But some of the comments were actually pretty good to know, and would've saved me some time if I had seen them earlier.

I wonder how many others would do (or have done) the same?

One way to get around that is to have all help texts shown by default when the component is first installed. Then, once the user has read everything and is tired of seeing it, have the option to make it hidden-by-default to save on screen real estate.

Having done forum support for an MMO for nearly 2 years, I know firsthand how frustrating it can be when users never seem to read stuff that's already been posted, whether it's in-game documentation or stickies on the forum. It's kind of sad (having also written most of the game documentation myself), but I'm always pleasantly surprised when someone refers to something I'd written.

So I'm all for making documentation as easily accessible as possible, so that people don't have the excuse of "I didn't see it." ;)

p.s. Is it hypocritical of me, then, to avoid reading others' documentation? I'd say no, because I do consult the documentation/forum archives when I get stuck, or ready to learn more advanced features, before I start posting newb questions for others to answer.