Hints, Help and Coaching

This is a study of the help facilities provided in the popular word processor, Microsoft Word, which is revealed as a comprehensively accomplished application that can appear daunting at first. It is a pity that, according to this study, which surveyed several groups of student users, there are many who never progress beyond the unambitious use of a modest set of its capabilities. This thesis suggests that barriers to the full exploitation of the powers of Word and similar software packages may be overcome by a few simple strategies, including simplifying the already plentiful repertoire of customisation tools and devising training aimed specifically at enriching and smoothing the beginners'' learning curve.