diff --git a/modules/highgui/doc/highgui.rst b/modules/highgui/doc/highgui.rst
index 5c6b94fd33..f0341ad498 100644
--- a/modules/highgui/doc/highgui.rst
+++ b/modules/highgui/doc/highgui.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,22 @@
 ****************************
 High-level GUI and Media I/O
 ****************************
+
+
+While OpenCV was designed for use in full-scale
+applications and can be used within functionally rich UI frameworks (such as Qt, WinForms or Cocoa) or without any UI at all, sometimes there is a need to try some functionality quickly and visualize the results. This is what the HighGUI module has been designed for.
+
+It provides easy interface to:
+
+* create and manipulate windows that can display images and "remember" their content (no need to handle repaint events from OS)
+* add trackbars to the windows, handle simple mouse events as well as keyboard commmands
+* read and write images to/from disk or memory.
+* read video from camera or file and write video to a file.
+    
+
+.. toctree::
+    :maxdepth: 2
+
+    user_interface
+    reading_and_writing_images_and_video
+    qt_new_functions