Re: [udig-devel] Re: Gettings Started (0.8 Feedback)

[jgarnett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Quoting Adrian Custer <acuster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Yes, I saw the "Getting Started" Approach.

Good that means we are getting better, the first round of usability testing had
many users not find the help, and those that did hunting around for next/prev
page buttons.
 
> No, I don't think this is sufficient.
Me either :) 
 
> The docs are not good for newbies. The 'first' doc is too complex and
> the layout is attrocious. As I said in my post you want to teach the
> user to do 4 things.

I actually want to do only two things:
1) seach
2) see

I see you have found the same issues as are usability testing. I do like the
nice simple cheat sheet idea, I too have found them useful. The existing cheat
sheet is quite tied to the IDE (makes use of IResource and character runs to
allow editing).  The idea is sound, I will see if they plan to make cheat sheets
available for general RCP use.

Your suggestion of using the initial welcome page contents to describe the steps
needed to see content is also valid.  We did find that people unfamiliar with
the eclipse environment have been very responsive to the getting started
tutorial (and indeed have requested more detail).

> There are two eventual solutions:
> 	1) you make a big, single 'getting started' HTML page with no frames,
> no nothing, just one big scrollbar. The more sophisticated help system
> is another step.
> 	2) you create a "cheat sheet" which you can even script to have little
> buttons to actually do each step for the user! It works w/in eclipse so
> we aren't jumping into the docs, it is designed for the purpose, and it
> worked well for me while learning the ide. Not that I'd suggest making a
> big use of it. It's not a good format for conceptual ideas, or for
> reference info. That's what the doc subsystem is for.
> 
> I'm not saying this needs to be done right away but certainly before you
> deploy this widely, for your own sake.

I would say it needs to be done right away, just like shapefile performance -
first impressions are what count.  I will try and time one of the above options
with the workflow improvements.

Jody