Hi Matt, Thanks for the comprehensive run down.
On Wed, 2007-10-10 at 11:07 +0100, Matthew East wrote: > Just one further clarification: the screencasts are not designed as > marketing videos, but are rather explanations about how to do a > particular task on Ubuntu. > Agreed. The existing batch are predominantly aimed at new users as a show-and-tell experience. I figure a large number of people are put off by reams of text documentation, or just flat out won't read it. Then there are those who actually prefer to be shown something rather than teach themselves. I am pretty sure that there are plenty of people out there who benefit from being shown how to do something. There is of course also the marketing side. Showing that we can do something that other platforms can't, showing that we have the latest crack that other distros don't, showing that we have a great community and so on. All these aren't technically show-and-tell, but more marketing disguised as such. > As I understand it, the > screencasts project doesn't current have that aim, although perhaps it > could be extended. Indeed. We just figured it would be cool to have some videos showing how to do stuff. If other people can see other aims or goals that we perhaps should strive for then please speak up. I spoke to Kat and Matt earlier on today and explained some of the history of the screencast team. We have issues in that there's not a huge number of people contributing screencasts themselves, but we have plenty of people offering to spec up, script and help prep screencasts. Then in post-production we have people willing to subtitle and translate them into other languages. We're also somewhat lacking direction. I'd appreciate any and all help in this regard. Whether that means being directed by the docteam as to which screencasts fit best with the existing documentation, or what, I don't know, but I'm happy to talk about any/all alternatives. > However, in relation to screencasts which are pure instructions on how > to accomplish a particular task, I think it's important to recognise > that screencasts are essential one aspect of documentation: text and > video in the context of *instructions* are essentially two sides of > the same concept. Video is cool and flashy, but text has its uses as > well. > I completely agree. It's really my fault that we moved away from the docteam, and I'm sorry if that's what's caused us to have less direction. If there are people either within Canonical or in the docteam who can lend us a hand with that, I'd love to hear it. > I think we should try and promote the two together, in the sense that > users who we are showing instructions to should be presented with > either an option of whether to follow text instructions, or video > instructions. I agree. At the moment we have a small number of fairly lengthy screencasts. I'd much rather we had a larger number of shorter ones, that are punchy and atomic, but in sequence can build into a larger tutorial. > Ideally, they'd get both at the same time, integrated. > I'd like to work with Alan if possible to develop ways to integrate > screencasts into the online and system documentation. > Cool. I am happy with that. Many thanks for all the help and support guys & gals. Cheers, Al.
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