Control Tip and Status Bar Texts

[kd2017]

I just have a generic question. When you all are designing your UI's do you utilize Control Tips or Status Bar Texts? Do you have any general guidelines you design by? What do your user's find most helpful?

I've always been too lazy to utilize these features.

[Minty]

Control Tips are a waste of time IMHO, they aren't reliable in how they display and most users don't hover around the controls long enough to see them.

The status bar is better but again is so small and in the wrong place so it doesn't help much either.

[isladogs]

i never use control tips as they take a couple of seconds to popup and at times don't appear at all e.g if there is a hidden control on top of the one with the control tip
I only rarely use status bar text as its small and easy to miss.

Instead I use a normally hidden label on the form with caption text that is large and colourful so users cannot miss it e.g. 20 point magenta.
Occasionally, if I really want it to be noticed, I use scrolling or flashing text
After all, if I'm providing help text, I want users to see it.

Where that isn't appropriate, I use a small help button which when clicked pops up a message or a help form for user info.

See my example app for demonstrations of each (and more...) Attention Seek - Mendip Data Systems

[orange]

I agree with Minty and Colin --control tip text takes too long to display for effective use.

[kd2017]

Thanks for the input!

I like Colin's custom status label idea. The only draw back I suppose is every control will need it's own onfocus event... Right?

[isladogs]

Don't use an OnFocus event. I use a Mouse Move event so hovering over the control triggers the label & customised text to appear
That means the user can move around a form without clicking anything and see all the various help messages