'Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki
2014-12-09 13:15:07 UTC
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.
How better to decide where to improve the documentation needs improvement
than to watch some novice users try to do a few of the basics, see where
they had problems and work on the documentation to ease them through their
difficulties. So I have recruited some victims... er... volunteers who I
thought might be reasonable candidates for my experiment. All of them are
daily computer users. All of them are well educated with at least a
bachelors degree from well regarded universities and colleges. None of them
have ever done any programming or serious modifications of a computer
program. All of them know what the word macro meant in context. They seem
the sort of individuals who might try a program based on the recommendation
of a friend or colleague. They are quintessentially the sort of person we
would like to see adopting TiddlyWiki in greater numbers.
And the task I picked seemed simple enough.
1. Download an empty Tiddlywiki file and get it working on your computer.
2. Create two tiddlers.
3. Enhance the text in some manner; underlining, italicising or bolding.
4. Create a link between the two tiddlers.
5. Change the title of the wiki.
6. Save their new Wiki.
I wanted them to do this with minimal intervention on my part so I could
see what a novice user without an experienced user at hand would
experience. It all seemed so reasonable and simple at the time.
Then I had my session with the first experimental subject, G, and the
results were both illuminating and discouraging at the same time.
G was able to find the Tiddlywiki site and got as far as starting the
download process but got no further before they became frustrated to the
point of quitting. The pop-up screen read "*You have chosen to open:
b4430791-9e6d-4eea-b1cd-f1b075462833 which is: Firefox HTML Document (1.2
MB) from blob:*" My test subject responded, "That wasn't what I wanted to
download. I wanted Tiddlywiki.html or Empty.html. What is this blob
nonsense? Something has gone wrong." They cancelled the first download and
tried again but got a similar bit of gibberish. G was about to give up when
I intervened for the first time suggesting that they go ahead and save the
file.
Of course, the file G got had a name that bore no resemblance to the
gibberish that had been on the screen and G was uncertain if that was
really the file they wanted but with some encouragement (intervention #2),
opened the file and saw the "GettingStarted" tiddler.
The next task, create two tiddlers proved equally discouraging. G found the
plus (+) sign but again struggled almost immediately. G attempted to name
the tiddler by entering text in the search window, the enter a Tag Name
slot and the Field Name slot. G then went on to enter a few words in the
space labelled "Type the text for this tiddler." Since G had left the
TiddlyWiki site in favor of the new empty wiki, they were uncertain of what
to do next and clicked on the plus sign and thus started to create "New
Tiddler 1" which would also contain just a few words.
G was completely lost about what to do next and went back to the TiddlyWiki
site. Returning to the new Empty wiki, G clicked the tick button... I
assume the British name for that character is "tick" and not "check" but
since it had a picture of it, G had no problem clicking on it and creating
two tiddlers "New Tiddler" and "New Tiddler 1." The two tiddlers collapsed
to normal size for tiddlers containing a grand total of six words.
G saw that the GettingStarted tiddler said "Save changes using the
'download' button in the sidebar." After a bit of searching, G eventually
discovered that although there was no button labelled "download," there was
one with the help text labelled "save changes." G clicked that and shortly
thereafter discovered that they had not installed TiddlyFox and thus
everything they had done was lost.
It was at this point that G gave up once and for all. Without my presence,
G would never have gotten that far before quitting so it seems reasonable
to assume that a user of G's calibre, college educated with an advanced
degree, experienced computer user, would not end up adopting TiddlyWiki
without a lot of hand-holding by an experienced user. G never made it as
far as the documentation so it would not have mattered how good the
documentation was.
After we called a halt to the experiment, G asked why anyone would bother
with this amount of effort. What would it do? I stepped G through some of
the sites linked in the Community Tiddler, an exercise that took more
effort than I would have guessed... and after showing G a few of the
possibilities, Dave's Obadiah, Alberto academic wiki, the baby journal...
the response I got can best be described as a less than enthusiastic "hmm."
Like I said, I was discouraged. We would have lost this potential user very
early in the procedure.
A few suggestions seem obvious:
1. Get away from the current download mechanism to one that downloads a
file with the expected name. Getting one with an apparently random name is
confusing at best.
2. Add the words "This is a tiddler" to the current GettingStarted
tiddler. That would be a clear indication of what the program means when it
says "Create a New Tiddler."
3. For Beginners at least, we need a version of the empty wiki that
isn't quite so empty. I recommend we include a version of the
GettingStarted tiddler so that the novice can be reminded of the required
addins, etc. I also recommend "Formatting in WikiText" and the Community
tiddlers. Experienced users know how to delete that handful of tiddlers and
new users need them convenient so perhaps we should add them to the single
empty wiki.
4. Add a placeholder that says "Search" for the sidebar search space.
5. Use the term "New Tiddler Title" instead of "New Tiddler" as a cue to
the new user where to put the title.
6. Add an instruction on how to save the new tiddler on the current
GettingStarted after the line "Create new tiddlers using the 'plus' button
in the sidebar".
7. Change the line "Save changes using the 'download' button in the
sidebar" to refer to a 'Save Changes' since we don't have a 'download'
button
I have lined up three more test subjects. I'll keep you appraised.
Stephen
How better to decide where to improve the documentation needs improvement
than to watch some novice users try to do a few of the basics, see where
they had problems and work on the documentation to ease them through their
difficulties. So I have recruited some victims... er... volunteers who I
thought might be reasonable candidates for my experiment. All of them are
daily computer users. All of them are well educated with at least a
bachelors degree from well regarded universities and colleges. None of them
have ever done any programming or serious modifications of a computer
program. All of them know what the word macro meant in context. They seem
the sort of individuals who might try a program based on the recommendation
of a friend or colleague. They are quintessentially the sort of person we
would like to see adopting TiddlyWiki in greater numbers.
And the task I picked seemed simple enough.
1. Download an empty Tiddlywiki file and get it working on your computer.
2. Create two tiddlers.
3. Enhance the text in some manner; underlining, italicising or bolding.
4. Create a link between the two tiddlers.
5. Change the title of the wiki.
6. Save their new Wiki.
I wanted them to do this with minimal intervention on my part so I could
see what a novice user without an experienced user at hand would
experience. It all seemed so reasonable and simple at the time.
Then I had my session with the first experimental subject, G, and the
results were both illuminating and discouraging at the same time.
G was able to find the Tiddlywiki site and got as far as starting the
download process but got no further before they became frustrated to the
point of quitting. The pop-up screen read "*You have chosen to open:
b4430791-9e6d-4eea-b1cd-f1b075462833 which is: Firefox HTML Document (1.2
MB) from blob:*" My test subject responded, "That wasn't what I wanted to
download. I wanted Tiddlywiki.html or Empty.html. What is this blob
nonsense? Something has gone wrong." They cancelled the first download and
tried again but got a similar bit of gibberish. G was about to give up when
I intervened for the first time suggesting that they go ahead and save the
file.
Of course, the file G got had a name that bore no resemblance to the
gibberish that had been on the screen and G was uncertain if that was
really the file they wanted but with some encouragement (intervention #2),
opened the file and saw the "GettingStarted" tiddler.
The next task, create two tiddlers proved equally discouraging. G found the
plus (+) sign but again struggled almost immediately. G attempted to name
the tiddler by entering text in the search window, the enter a Tag Name
slot and the Field Name slot. G then went on to enter a few words in the
space labelled "Type the text for this tiddler." Since G had left the
TiddlyWiki site in favor of the new empty wiki, they were uncertain of what
to do next and clicked on the plus sign and thus started to create "New
Tiddler 1" which would also contain just a few words.
G was completely lost about what to do next and went back to the TiddlyWiki
site. Returning to the new Empty wiki, G clicked the tick button... I
assume the British name for that character is "tick" and not "check" but
since it had a picture of it, G had no problem clicking on it and creating
two tiddlers "New Tiddler" and "New Tiddler 1." The two tiddlers collapsed
to normal size for tiddlers containing a grand total of six words.
G saw that the GettingStarted tiddler said "Save changes using the
'download' button in the sidebar." After a bit of searching, G eventually
discovered that although there was no button labelled "download," there was
one with the help text labelled "save changes." G clicked that and shortly
thereafter discovered that they had not installed TiddlyFox and thus
everything they had done was lost.
It was at this point that G gave up once and for all. Without my presence,
G would never have gotten that far before quitting so it seems reasonable
to assume that a user of G's calibre, college educated with an advanced
degree, experienced computer user, would not end up adopting TiddlyWiki
without a lot of hand-holding by an experienced user. G never made it as
far as the documentation so it would not have mattered how good the
documentation was.
After we called a halt to the experiment, G asked why anyone would bother
with this amount of effort. What would it do? I stepped G through some of
the sites linked in the Community Tiddler, an exercise that took more
effort than I would have guessed... and after showing G a few of the
possibilities, Dave's Obadiah, Alberto academic wiki, the baby journal...
the response I got can best be described as a less than enthusiastic "hmm."
Like I said, I was discouraged. We would have lost this potential user very
early in the procedure.
A few suggestions seem obvious:
1. Get away from the current download mechanism to one that downloads a
file with the expected name. Getting one with an apparently random name is
confusing at best.
2. Add the words "This is a tiddler" to the current GettingStarted
tiddler. That would be a clear indication of what the program means when it
says "Create a New Tiddler."
3. For Beginners at least, we need a version of the empty wiki that
isn't quite so empty. I recommend we include a version of the
GettingStarted tiddler so that the novice can be reminded of the required
addins, etc. I also recommend "Formatting in WikiText" and the Community
tiddlers. Experienced users know how to delete that handful of tiddlers and
new users need them convenient so perhaps we should add them to the single
empty wiki.
4. Add a placeholder that says "Search" for the sidebar search space.
5. Use the term "New Tiddler Title" instead of "New Tiddler" as a cue to
the new user where to put the title.
6. Add an instruction on how to save the new tiddler on the current
GettingStarted after the line "Create new tiddlers using the 'plus' button
in the sidebar".
7. Change the line "Save changes using the 'download' button in the
sidebar" to refer to a 'Save Changes' since we don't have a 'download'
button
I have lined up three more test subjects. I'll keep you appraised.
Stephen
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