Re: Getting people to read the docs
It's been rumoured that Jan Schrage said: Hi everyone, from a number of discussions during the last two or three weeks I am getting the impression that a number of people don't bother to read the docs accompanying gnucash, whatever the reason. Personally I suspect that as long as the clicking works people tend to think they're getting their accounts right, too, which in general seems not to be the case. Now my proposal would be to=20 1) rename Help-Help to Help-Documentation in the menus to make it clear that this is not a sort of last resort help facility. 2) Check if ~/.gnucash exists and if not, pop up a box right at the beginning that suggests to people to actually read these docs before they start fiddling around. I like the ideas ... I'd add 3) a 'did-you-know/hint-of-the-day' dialogue. the gimp pops up one of these, every time you start it up. real handy. after a few doxen start ups, you can really start learning stuff ... --linas
Re: Getting people to read the docs
On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 12:09:23PM -0400, Jesse D. Sightler wrote: That is not likely to work. :-) Help should be context sensitive, and you should offer a "Wizard" like process for setting up accounts if you are afraid that people are getting them wrong. I think it's important to remember that many people do not like to study software manuals or accounting books, and a program which continuously reminds people to do so may be abandonded by these people. Assistants (wizards is a silly name :) are useable, I think. I'm not sure how much context-sensitive help is actually read. :( The Microsoft task-oriented help, in my experience, is sometimes useful, but is probablematic when the exact task one is looking for is not listed. ...perhaps some sort of automatically generated web FAQ? -- Randolph Fritz Eugene, Oregon, USA
Re: Getting people to read the docs
Randolph Fritz writes: I think it's important to remember that many people do not like to study software manuals or accounting books, and a program which continuously reminds people to do so may be abandonded by these people. No one I know likes to study software manuals or accounting books, but perhaps it might be better to encourage those who refuse to do so to hire someone to do their accounting for them. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hasler) Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI
Re: Getting people to read the docs
On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 06:14:27PM -0500, John Hasler wrote: Randolph Fritz writes: I think it's important to remember that many people do not like to study software manuals or accounting books, and a program which continuously reminds people to do so may be abandonded by these people. No one I know likes to study software manuals or accounting books, but perhaps it might be better to encourage those who refuse to do so to hire someone to do their accounting for them. Well, now you know someone, or at least 1/2 of someone; I like studying new software, if it's interesting and the manuals are reasonably accessible. :) I'll go along with encouragement, however I believe the typical Quicken user is just someone keeping their home accounts, and I doubt they will study accounting to use gnucash; I will not. That said, I will admit that I do not know the intended user group, or how they will respond. For best acceptance, I think some simple user testing is in order. Also, most people prefer to learn a tool by working with it, and if those people are to feel supported, the basic household functions of the tool had probably best be usable without study. This doesn't apply to business users, I would think. -- Randolph Fritz Eugene, Oregon, USA
Getting people to read the docs
Hi everyone, from a number of discussions during the last two or three weeks I am getting the impression that a number of people don't bother to read the docs accompanying gnucash, whatever the reason. Personally I suspect that as long as the clicking works people tend to think they're getting their accounts right, too, which in general seems not to be the case. Now my proposal would be to 1) rename Help-Help to Help-Documentation in the menus to make it clear that this is not a sort of last resort help facility. 2) Check if ~/.gnucash exists and if not, pop up a box right at the beginning that suggests to people to actually read these docs before they start fiddling around. Just my 2 cents... Jan . . .. .. . . . .. . .. .. ... ... .. . . . .. Jan Schrage [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~schrage PGP: http://pgp5.ai.mit.edu/pks-commands.html PGP signature
