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I'd like to voice some concerns I have about the new susegreeter in 10.3.
The background is that a few folks on IRC (including me) have been
trying to push the idea of having a one-click icon on the desktop to get
onto the #suse channel on freenode.
We do think that it would be a valuable way for new users to get help
from the community.
What happened (unfortunately somewhat behind the scenes, which is why
this email might seem a bit late) is that the concept was expanded to
the following:
1) add such links to susegreeter, which is the big shiny "welcome to
opensuse" window that is started when you first log in
2) not only link to #suse but also to the wiki, mailing-lists, forums, SDB
3) add a desktop icon to start susegreeter at a later point in time, not
just on first login
4) for IRC, link to #opensuse instead of #suse -- #opensuse is currently
just a redirect to #suse and would add an additional safety net just in case
Here's a mockup of the current implementation:
http://developer.kde.org/~binner/SUSEgreeter/
While the above is fine and a good idea, I think the current
implementation (as of alpha7) is not very good, for the following reasons:
* the text is too cluttered, and I'm not sure whether using underlined
links are clear enough to unexperienced users (yeah, everyone knows the
web and hyperlinks, but still)
* the text is not "action oriented", which is pretty much what everyone
agrees on is the better alternative in terms of usability
What would be more effective (and easier to comprehend) would be to use
action oriented bullet points (or similar), e.g.:
========================================================================
The openSUSE community are helpful people. There are several ways to get
in touch with other community members, such as forums, mailing lists and
internet chat (IRC). On the openSUSE wiki there are also HOWTOs and
other documentation. The first place to look for help is our support
database.
* get real-time support from the community using IRC chat
* subscribe to support mailing-lists and get help from our very large
user base
* ask questions and/or search for answers in our communities' forums
* search for information and help in our wiki articles and howtos
* search our Support Database (SDB) for existing workarounds
========================================================================
(each of the * being links that trigger the respective action)
(.. and whatever the order is)
Note that what would be even more effective is to have an intermediate
screen with complementary information.
e.g. when clicking the IRC link (as above), get into another screen that
shortly explains what IRC is, that the room is a community thing and by
no means "official support", and with additional links, for example:
* more information about IRC (-> wikipedia)
* #suse channel rules (-> http://suse-irc.org/rules.html (1))
and a big fat button "connect now" that would start the respective IRC
client and connect to irc://irc.freenode.net/#opensuse
(1) we could move that to opensuse.org or opensuse-community.org, might
be more appropriate
Same thing for mailing-lists, forums, SDB, wiki, ...
And maybe it would be a good idea to split
a) "how to contribute" type of links (build service, wiki, community)
b) "how to get help" type of links (IRC, mailing-lists, forums, SDB, ...)
in order to get more space in the greeter window (maybe use tabs in the
susegreeter window ?)
One thing that must really be kept in mind is that the "how to get help"
links are not very interesting on first login and that the user will
want to use them _when he needs help_.
1) "damn, my sound card doesn't work" or "why does amarok not play my
MP3s" or ..., which leads to:
2) "where can I get help ?"
3) -> clearly label the desktop icon ("Get help!" would be most
appropriate IMO but then again, I can already hear suits claim "yeah but
it's community support not official support and ...")
4) -> clearly explain the options and quickly get the user there, which
can be achieved through action oriented bullet lists (as explained above)
Thanks for reading.
cheers
- --
-o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
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