Hi,
you certainly already know there is an ongoing project Renaissance [1]
to improve the user interface of OpenOffice.org.
Several design proposals have been submitted by community members. At
least one proposal by Miroslav Mazel [2] also mentions the Help. Here
are some paragraphs from Miroslav's text regarding the OOo Help:
----start----
Help
Help should be completely revamped to be and feel friendlier and lose
its reputation of being intimidating/frustrating.
* Images, videos, tutorials, and common-language descriptions
should all be added, sometimes in place of unclear directions.
* Help feels like a part of the suite
* Search needs to be vastly improved, along the lines proposed in
the [User Experience/Command search command search proposal]. "What's
this?" should work for EVERY command in the interface, and there should
be an infobar with a nice big button to end this mode.
* The Help home screen should be simple: A search box, a few large
categorical links (similarly to System Preferences/Control Panel in Mac
OS and Windows, although fewer and larger), and a link to online
resources. It should feel very much like the new Options tab.
* Tutorials especially should utilize videos, simple, step-by-step
directions, loads of screenshots, and/or even a "Do this for me" button,
which would walk the user through the task.
* Let's tout the Help improvements (once we're sure it's really
good) with the release of the Renaissance OO.o (or even earlier; this
could be implemented independently), since it seems a lot of people now
simply disregard Help.
----end----
What do you think?
How can we improve the UI of Help?
How can we improve the functionality (helpfulness) of Help?
How can we improve the contents of Help?
[1]
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Renaissance
[2]
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Proposal_by_Miroslav_Mazel
Uwe
--
u...@openoffice.org - Technical Writer
StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany
http://documentation.openoffice.org/
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation
http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum
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