Explanatory guide text in Conductor?

Jaromír Coufal jcoufal at redhat.com
Fri Aug 10 12:26:57 UTC 2012


On 10.8.2012 13:34, Justin Clift wrote:
> On 10/08/2012, at 5:58 PM, Jaromír Coufal wrote:
>> ... So I would just go to the bottom of the page, hit help, hit
>> deployable and I am right there, where I need to be.
> Heh.  That doesn't seem so easy to me, from a "new user having
> difficulties" perspective.
>
> What I mean is the above isn't one step in thinking.  It's:
>
> a) Er... ok, now I'm lost.  <-- user figures they need help
> b) User needs to know to scroll to page bottom <-- not automatic
> c) User scrolls to bottom of page
> d) User hunts around for "that help link" then clicks on it
> e) User hunts around for what seems like the right description
>     for what they're trying to do.  "deployable?  is that it?"
>     Click on a few things, looking for the right one.
>     ^^^^^^ Remembering, this user is having issues.  Low
>            knowledge level should be assumed here.
> f) If the user gets this far, we'll be able to give them the
>     info they want.
>
> Compare this to:
>
> a) Er... ok, now I'm lost.  <-- user figures they need help
> b) User clicks link in flash message for more info.
>     ^^^ The link should take them to exactly the right spot
>         not just some index page, they then need to search
>         through. ;)
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> + Justin
>
> --
> Aeolus Community Manager
> http://www.aeolusproject.org
>
Yeah, it makes sense, I understand and agree with you, that second 
approach is much easier in this case.

Just one note to case 1: It's said that users are used to look for 
website help in footer menu. I was doing some research few months ago 
and found out that they actually go directly down, if they look for some 
help/documentation/etc. But I didn't have big group enough to say this 
for sure. Anyway I will search for some researches about this, just for 
curiosity :)

But definitely agree with you that, second approach is much easier. I 
was more wondering how often will this situation occur, that I am so 
lost, that I need really deep information, because majority of cases 
should be solved by reading tooltip text - that's why they will be 
there. We should be able to design application the way, that user 
shouldn't need go through very deep documentation to use it (even though 
it might rarely happen). Having link in tooltip might be little bit 
distracting and might attract user's attention (curiosity what can I 
find there) although he can complete his goal. Does it make sense to you?

Anyway this is no big issue, so if we agree that user can be so lost, 
that he needs detailed information (quite often), then it is really ok 
to place link in tooltip.

-- 
Jaromír Coufal

Interaction Designer
Red Hat Czech s.r.o.

Mobile: +420 724 595 508
E-mail: jcoufal at redhat.com
IRC: jcoufal at #cloudforms-ui, #aeolus, #brno

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