----- Original Message ----- > From: "Matt Wagner" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Wednesday, August 8, 2012 4:01:02 PM > Subject: Explanatory guide text in Conductor? > > Hi folks, > > I've had an idea in the back of my mind for a while, and thought I'd > mention it here to see if it was actually a good idea or not. > > A lot of web apps, especially the ones that are user-friendly, tend > to > include text at the top of the main content section of each page > walking > you through what you're expected to do on the page. After you upload > a > photo to a social site, you might get a message along the lines of, > "Great photo, $user! Now, you can tag your friends in the photo, or > add > a caption below!" > > In that case, it's probably semi-intuitive what you're expected to > do, > but the text at the top of the page makes it abundantly clear if you > weren't sure. > > Aeolus does something pretty complicated, and a user must step > through a > bunch of forms as they build an image, create a deployable, and go to > launch it. We've talked about working on making the flow intuitive > and > the forms easy-to-understand, but I wonder if it might also be nice > to > have some text guiding the user along. > > As a random example, here is what the "New Deployable" page looks > like > today: > http://dvmw6cjgjm3k7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screenshot-at-2012-08-08-142841.png > > It's not necessarily a complicated form, but if you stop someone on > the > street and ask them what it's all about, they're going to have no > clue. > > I took a really rough stab at writing some text at the top of the > page: > http://dvmw6cjgjm3k7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screenshot-at-2012-08-08-150224.png > > The text probably needs some work, and we should probably have a link > or > something like that to explain _what_ a "Deployable XML file" is and > how > to create one. But I like the idea of having some text telling me > what > I'm doing on the page, and what will happen next. > > Ignoring my mediocre example text and the fact that it's just an > unstyled paragraph tag, I wonder what people think about this general > concept. Would it be helpful? Or in an app like ours, do we expect > the > user to know what they're doing? (Unlike, say, sharing a photo with > some > friends, managing cloud deployments isn't necessarily you should > learn > on the fly.) > > -- Matt >
I like this idea, but in my opinion it should be generalized into a glossary/index of help items and topics; and an API that lets us create help links/popups that lead into the glossary. Popups will help reduce clutter for expert users, and an overall help glossary will give a starting place for new users that might be confused. Mainn
