I personally think that help screen or welcome screens that take the new user through a series of "need to know" tasks are a waste of time. How i and almost everyone i know goes about figuring out how to use a new product or design is simply by using it. They will click around the page and experiment with the functionality of the page. That is how people learn and while i think help screen are a convenience for some groups; the elderly,and people with no tech experience what so ever, I think that over all they are not a useful tool for people to employ on websites.
I think that the personnas for project 5 should cover a wide range of people. The hard core fans who follow the stories religiously would be a good group to look at. The casual fan who read the comics maybe or follows an account about the hero. And also the prospective customers, the people who couldn't care less about comic character or movies about superheroes. The people who DC and Marvel are trying to bring into the sales sector. I think looking at the personnas from multiple points of view is the best way to go about this.
I agree with you in the aspect that I do not need help screens most of the time. However, there are times when I believe they are appropriate. Some of these times would include programs that are very intense such as adobe programs or programs/ websites that are very new and forward thinking. But, that is just opinion based. From a design perspective there should be as few, little, or no help screens available because of obvious designing methods; that is easier said than done though.
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