ConnectingHelpSystems

Revision 14 as of 2007-12-02 03:33:19

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  • Launchpad Entry: noneyet

  • Packages affected:

STATUS: Firming up planning, accumulating designs and mockup images

Please feel free to contribute anything that comes to mind.

Summary

Ubuntu has a very strong help system, offering nearly every kind of support under the sun. Unfortunately, user experience with the help system is hampered by divisions between all the support systems, and the learning curve of discovering and using all the types of support. The goal of this spec is to explore ways of closing the gaps between various types of help, cross-breeding their respective strengths and centralizing the information.

Ideally:

  • the installed documentation's high polish and organization provides structure for:
  • the wiki system, which preserves and consolidates the fresh, ephemeral information from:
  • the forum, chat, and question systems, whose absolute simplicity kick-starts involvement

Hypothetical Release Notes

The installed help utility is now integrated with online help resources, seamlessly referring users to additional resources and allowing caching of updated bugs, tips, and howtos for the currently installed versions of all programs.

The online help pages now link directly to appropriate chat, forums, and external information.

Rationale

When someone needs help with a program, having all the information in one clear and up to date location is much better than having to search dozens of sites, miss dozens of others and hope the information you find is accurate. By enhancing the wiki system to incorporate as many of our support types as possible, you drive most activity to the same point, thus finding and solving issues fastest.

With the wiki system receiving much more activity, it's information is ever riper for the offline docs to leverage. The docteam can kill two birds with one stone by managing the core structure of the wiki. When they organize and approve essential sections of the wiki for offline caching, their managed sections automatically provide the live wiki with a sturdy skeleton on which to grow more user-tended content, and good user-rated feedback systems keep even the most tightly managed sections fresh.

When you connect all the systems together, you also have an opportunity to homogenize the interfaces. That way people who learn to use the most basic help features find a smooth transition to using others, and are more likely to wind up helping solve the problems of later users (intentionally, or by example).

Use Cases

(Update this to match the more recent, more streamlined ideas)

Bob is having trouble with a program. He checks the installed help tool and follows the trail from that package's usage and howto page to the user reported problems section. He does not find his problem in the common problems list, but finds his error message reported recently by another user. There are no suggested solutions yet, so he clicks the "me too" button on that error and goes to check other resources.

Suzy and Jim are experienced users of that package, and they are both there to submit short howto suggestions for that page. They see the increasingly popular error and immediately recognize it as a misconfiguration of a system file about which this program is picky. Their responses to the problem suggesting a fix causes all the people who clicked "me too" on that problem to be notified of feedback/activity on an open issue of theirs when they next check the site.

Joe had reported the issue and got the notification. When he tried their fix it worked, and he closed his issue with "fixed" pointing to their comments. He is one of several who do this, increasing the visibility of their solutions. Someone else soon writes up a nice suggestion explaining this as a common problem with a conflicting package, and how to resolve it.

Sadly, however, there is a gap and no editors are watching that page at this time. In a short while, the open suggestions and issues on this page begin to age without activity either accommodating, incorporating, or rejecting them. Soon the page shows up at the top of the docteam's monitor, letting all members see that part of the wiki is falling unmanaged. Hopefully someone will quickly be free to visit the page, promote the suggestion to a common problem, and tie all the issues to that for resolution, but in the meantime, visitors to that page can still get all the info they need just one layer into user submitted content.

Assumptions

  • the installed docs and the online help aren't separated by insurmountable legal barriers
  • the administrative teams of the parts of the support system are willing to cooperate
  • massive changes like this are decomposable into achievable sub-projects

Design Images + Implementation Sub-Specs

Wiki + IRC

Spec: TBA Status: Design and Brainstorming 3 picture essay:

Notes to push to spec:

  • a teaser at the top of the page suggests chatting about this topic in an irc channel
  • once activated, the teaser expands to offer links, explanation, and mini-chat
  • a flash or java chat client would have a simple interface, as most options are hard-coded
  • suggest appropriate channel at the top of each page
  • allow users to open a tiny, basic in frame java/flash irc client
  • hardcode the appropriate server and channel for the page's content
  • mimic the ubuntu help ui as closely as possible to help the learning curve
  • look for a good way to manage channel selection/inheritance for pages

Wiki + Forums

Spec: TBA Status: Design and Brainstorming 3 picture essay: Notes to push to spec:

  • [http://nmonk.org/livetree/Comment.jpg what the comment option could look like with no comments (This could be made transparent unless the mouse is over that section.)]

  • [http://nmonk.org/livetree/Comments.jpg example of existing comments (The count and a line along the right margin would be visible at all times to draw attention without obscuring official content.)]

  • [http://nmonk.org/livetree/OpenComments.jpg when browsing comments, the line becomes a box, showing the section to which the comments apply]

  • adding a comment should be barely more complicated than chat
  • replying to a comment gives a chance to agree or disagree (or report for content)
  • highly rated comments could become more visible to all users
  • allow users to request help/more information
  • keep track of the age of requests, and list them for the user
  • make clear notification when there has been feedback on their request
  • track questions from accounts with designated support personnel, for their support teams to respond? (Son, Helpdesk, Paid Support Companies)

Fresh + Managed

Spec: TBA Status: Design and Brainstorming 3 picture essay: Notes to push to spec:

  • you also have a choice of suggesting an edit, which is just slightly more complicated
  • others can approve or dissaprove of your edit easily
  • editors can incorporate your suggested edit just as easily
  • on managed pages, allow users to suggest changes with the same interface
  • allow other users to see and rate those suggestions
  • provide fast notification and review of suggestions in control panel
  • implement karma for useful suggestions and reviews
  • make the interface for suggesting and making changes nearly identical
  • use

Installed + Online

Spec: LinkingDesktopToOnlineHelp Status: Design and Brainstorming 3 picture essay: Notes to push to spec:

  • consider basing installed help on a web caching tool, thus direct transition
  • add updating and syncing with installed versions to installed help
  • separate navigation structure management from page content management
  • get a good control panel for managing overall structure, status, and permissions
  • figure out how to safely tie in unmanaged wiki pages

Connecting Wiki to External Resources

Spec: ExternalLinksRedirects Status: Design and Brainstorming 3 picture essay: Notes to push to spec:

  • standardize on a section near the top of the page
  • make ui match changing other page content, managed or not
  • integrate with the control panel for centralization

Outstanding Issues

  • the only person pushing for these ideas at this time is WAY over his head
  • said person lacks clear understanding of all parts of the current system
  • while it all seems possible, the features would probably take time to develop
  • by its nature, this spec shoots for massive changes in the way the system works
  • this spec is based on the idea of much finer grained, paragraph based wiki updates, not quite moin's page at a time system
  • the author of this spec is quite optimistically paranoid, and probably envisions much more managed pages than the current system (where all new users can modify almost all wiki pages on the wiki.ubuntu side)

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.

  • - What the heck is BoF?

CategorySpec