Interfacing to text using HELPME

HELPME is a Lisp based system designed to provide on-line help for novice and expert users of computer systems. HELPME permits the implementation of easy to use interfaces to existing documents by allowing a user familiar with a document (a 'document expert') to produce an index and incorporate information relating to the structure of the document into the interface. A typical user of HELPME can then interact with the document and index through a series of commands to quickly find the information desired.The primary advantage of a system like HELPME is that it permits construction of interfaces to existing on-line documents and provides three modes of interaction with the documents: simple display, indexed-based query and context overview. Simple display permits forward and reverse movement through a document while index-based query uses key-words to select relevant sections of the document hierarchy for display. Context overview permits a hierarchical view of the document. For example, the table of contents of a document can be used to construct this hierarchy. Each of these modes of interaction are independent and may be selected by the user at any point. The goal of HELPME is to allow a user to find any information in a document relating to the user's requests. Of course, many users do not have a good grasp on exactly what they are looking for but rely on inadvertent discovery. It is hoped that the flexibility of a HELPME-like system will satisfy the goals of an easy-to-use, extensible help system for computing environments. A long term goal for HELPME is to use domain knowledge and user models in user assistance and information management.