Balloon help
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Balloon help was a tooltips-type help system introduced by Apple Computer in their 1991 release of System 7.0. The name referred to the way the help text was displayed, in "balloons", like those containing the words in a comic strip. The name has since been used by many to refer to any sort of pop-up help text.
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[edit] The problem
During the leadup to System 7, Apple studied the problem of getting help in depth. They identified a number of common questions, such as where am I? and how do I get to...?. In the context of computer use they identified two main types of questions users asked; what is this thing? and how do I accomplish...?. Existing help systems typically didn't provide useful information on either of these topics, and were often nothing more than the paper manual copied into an electronic form.
One of the particularly thorny problems was the what is this thing question. In an interface that often included non-standard widgets or buttons labeled with an indecipherable icon, many functions required a trip to the manual to decipher. Users generally refused to do this, and ended up not using the full power of their applications due to many of its functions being "hidden" by unknown UI. It was this problem that Apple decided to attack, and after extensive testing, settled on Balloon Help as the solution.
Apple's solution for "How do I accomplish?" was Apple Guide, which would be added to System 7.5 in 1994.
[edit] Mechanism
Balloon help was activated by choosing Show Balloon Help from System 7's new Help menu. While balloon help was on, moving the mouse over an item would display help for that item. Balloon help was deactivated by choosing Hide Balloon Help from the same menu.
The underlying system was based on a set of resources included in application software holding text that would appear in the balloons. The resources for the balloon animations and outlines were held in the operating system itself. Due to the balloons being implemented entirely as resources, they could be added easily using standard applications like ResEdit. Apple also supplied a custom editor application to improve the process, which displayed a list of only those objects that required balloons, and edited the text inside a balloon shape to give the developer some idea of how the resulting display would appear.
The engine would automatically display the proper balloon based on the mouse location and the item's current state. It also positioned the balloon using a clever algorithm to keep it from eclipsing the objects being examined. Help text for most common UI elements, such as the Close Box on a window, was built into the system. Developers could also include balloons for the application icon itself, allowing users to identify unknown applications in the Finder.
[edit] Reactions
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Developers were encouraged to include help text with a certain grammar, and not only name the object being looked at, but also explain to the user any state it might have. For instance, modern tooltips might say something like "copy" to explain a button, but Apple suggested the more detailed "Copies the selected text onto the clipboard," as well as a second version that added "Not available now because there is no selection." This sophisticated feature was invaluable for someone trying to understand why a particular menu item was greyed out. In this respect, balloons were far more helpful than modern tooltip systems, and helped users learn more about how their applications worked.
Balloon help was ill received at the time it was implemented[citation needed]. It was slow on low-end machines, such as Macintosh Plus and Macintosh SE. Balloons would appear immediately when the mouse was moved over an item with available help, meaning that balloons popped up and disappeared in a distracting fashion. Balloons could only be turned on and off from a menu, making them harder to use to identify a single object. Additionally, balloon help captions for most application elements had to be provided by that application's developer. This meant that in some applications balloon help was only available for standard objects, like the close box or menu bar.
No visible development was put into balloon help from its release in 1991 until its demise with the release of Mac OS X in 2001.
[edit] Legacy
Microsoft introduced Tooltips in Windows, which offer many of the same benefits while avoiding many of its problems. A tooltips-like system was used in OpenStep and retained for Mac OS X.
The balloon help concept has since been adopted as an optional alternative to tooltips in later versions of Microsoft Windows, such as Windows XP, which uses balloons to highlight and explain aspects of various programs or operating system features. (See the TTS_BALLOON flag.) Balloon help is also highly visible in GNOME, the Squeak Smalltalk environment, in the Enlightenment window manager and in the AmigaOS's MUI.
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