Explanatory guide text in Conductor?

Jaromír Coufal jcoufal at redhat.com
Sat Aug 11 11:22:26 UTC 2012


On 10.8.2012 14:26, Jaromír Coufal wrote:
>
> 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.
>
Thinking about this little bit more, I am more and more agreeing with 
you that it might be better to place a link there (target=_blank) - in 
our case it might more useful for beginners than "non-distraction" approach.

-- Jarda

-- 
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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