@Stephen > > Dare I ask if you've had a chance to do any more testing? It was just very > interesting to hear your review. And has that first subject commented on > anything afterwards? > > General note for these types of tests: > In a hangout Jeremy rightfully pointed out a problem in having test > subjects who are not by themselves motivated to use TW, i.e why would > anyone who is not looking for, say, a note book or wiki system be > interested in TW. I'm thinking that maybe for the types of tests you're > doing, one should ask what "systems" they're currently using and then kind > of indicate that TW might just be even better because it can be customized > (etc), i.e to give them motivation to *want* to explore it. > > <:-) >
The test I reported on was intended to replicate, to the extent possible, a "novice" user who has a friend recommend the program and decides to give it a try. The sort of thing that might happen if people are talking over a cup of coffee and one of them tells them what a wonderful program TiddlyWiki is and what they are doing with it. I have done this a couple more times but the results were mostly the same. G simply illustrated difficulties particularly well. I have four more subjects going through a second exploring an experience I had at work. Two of my co-workers had seen what I was doing with TiddlyWiki and were duly impressed. In both cases, I actually installed the program on their machines and walked them through the basic operation. Despite the previous exposure and having the installation difficulties cleared for them, neither of them used the program for long. I'm hoping to better understand why in this next round. Again, two of the four have seen and actually used the program. I gave the two who had not seen the program in action, Wikis that were specifically tuned to their interests. One of them got a copy of Roma's GSD wiki. The other, who fancies herself a gourmet chef, got an updated version of Larry Russell's cookbook. The thought that actually seeing what the program can do and possibly working with it will give them more motivation to pursue it. I'll report on what I find assuming I come up with something interesting. Jeremy's observation is largely spot-on. As illustrated by the responses I got to my questions in https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tiddlywiki/i58udKt8U-4, specifically "What were you looking for when you first found TiddlyWIki?" virtually everyone had a specific task or need when they got started with the program. Very few were simply looking for new powerful tools. What I was specifically looking at in those first set of tests were the "barriers to entry" for the new user. Think about the task list I gave them, get a copy of TiddlyWiki, create a couple tiddlers, highlight some text in those tiddlers, create a link between those tiddlers, change the title of the wiki and save it. For everyone in this group those are almost reflexive. But how many tiddlers does someone who isn't experienced with TiddlyWiki have to look at to figure out how to do those? If you were a new user, how would you go about figuring out how to change the color of a sentence? Would you have to install a plugin to do that? We all know the answer is no but would someone who didn't know TiddlyWiki be able to figure that out in a timely manner? How motivated does the new user have to be to stick with it long enough to get there? Can we make it easier for the new user to start to see actual value to the program so they don't have to be "highly motivated" to stick with it? These are some of the questions I find particularly interesting. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
