Request advice - how to inform user.

[rothjm]

I have a webpage (asp.net) on our intranet to pull up some information.
I need to inform the user about searching tips.
How should I go about doing this?
My first thought is to put a link and launch a separate webpage with all the tips.
I plan to make if fairly detailed with examples (quite a bit of info).
How do you handle this sort of thing?
TIA - Jeff

[Lord_Rat]

Well, this is more of a design question, not a coding-specific question.

And it depends on the nature of the form and web page. The existing design is going to influence the decision greatly.

And then, there is even more you should be asking yourself:
Why do people need this information? Is the page so complex to use that someone needs a "cheat-sheet" to use it?

Will a one-line description work instead?

Will validation be sufficient, with descriptive error messages for the cases when people do, indeed, put invalid entries in?

Do you have a 'busy' page and cannot fit any extra information anywhere on it? Or do you have a relatively blank page and could have a space dedicated to placing this information in that space?

[rothjm]

The page isn't that busy...it is just it will be printed once the query is completed. I felt placing the search tips on it would clutter it up. The page isn't too complex. I am doing a SQL query and the user would need to use the "%" sign to query for "like" names....such as they don't know the complete name and just want to enter the first 3 characters etc.
I've hard coded the "%" on the first name. Not sure if a one liner would be descriptive enough. I have the tool tip explaining the "%" as the wildcard. My boss did not feel that was sufficient. The page is to search for Radiology History within our Hospital.
Thanks for your reply!

P.S. Sorry if this belonged in another forum. Yeah, I'm a noob!

[Lord_Rat]

TIP: You can use '%' as a wildcard. CLICK HERE for more information/examples.

[mendhak]

Put the summarized guidelines for search criteria in a tiny little box to the side somewhere, where it's visible but not obtrusive.