Hi Uwe,
Uwe Fischer wrote:
Hi,
you certainly already know there is an ongoing project Renaissance [1]
to improve the user interface of OpenOffice.org.
First, I would like to thank you for reading the Project Renaissance
design proposals and drawing attention to them on this list. Second I
want to point out that there are 17 proposals, Miroslav's is just one of
them, but one that regards the Help, so Uwe is right to talk about this
one.
However good the proposals are or however detailed the designs, they
have yet to be evaluated by the Renaissance Team and looked at in terms
of solving real UI design issues that the UX User Survey's have
uncovered. Only some concepts will make it into prototypes to be tested.
What gets implemented in the OOo release is so far away that I cannot
even fantasize what it will be. So please do not assume that we intend
to implement the suggestions that were made. The new UI and any improved
Help would ideally go together, so that is something to keep in mind.
Just my 2c,
Liz
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
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
