[Imc-uk-useability] User education & help pages - was Re: [Imc-uk-process] imc london on thumbnails

[Maria Ng (News From Nowhere Bookshop)]

A general point that I've been meaning to make is that the UK Help page is not currently very helpful to anyone new to Indymedia, it's not very well structured or clear, and I don't think it answers most questions that new users might have.  One example: it says " For large media uploads use ftp upload part of the publish form, which is more reliable. " - but doesn't make clear that you need to ftp your files first, or indeed explain how to ftp your media files at all, so it's pretty meaningless to anyone who doesn't know what ftp is.  

Also, doesn't look like it's been proof-read: " well as you have found your way here, you can most probably browse the site. But are fonts wrong size for you. Try using a different browser such as Firefox, you can set the size of some of the generic headline fonts within it, as these set by browser you use not this site. " ?????

It's as if it was put up in 2003 and no-one since has gone back to look at it from the point of view of the average non-techy Indymedia reader/would-be-contributor and revised it.

Most regional help pages are either copies of the UK one, or non-existent, with the exception of Cambridge's which is mercifully clear and readable, and, although it doesn't offer any technical help, offers links to help and advice on writing decent news reports.

My point is, there is a lot more that could be done with 'user education', which could, among other things, help boost the quality of the newswire - i.e. basic stuff about how to optimise pics for the web, and advice about presentation for example.  

I'm putting together a set of help pages for Liverpool rather than just one, writing them with complete computer newbies in mind, trying to organise them into clear sections, trying to anticipate what a user's questions might be.  (People are very welcome to adapt or copy them when they're done)

So far I've done one for the publish form, and one for the calendar.  I'm planning to do one about pictures and some basics about preparing them for the web, maybe one about sound and video files (though I don't know much about that, I'm sure I can find some basic how-to info to link to), and these will include how to ftp large files.  Also, one about the RSS feeds and how to access them, one with writing & reporting tips, one for 'help where has my article gone?'.  I'm sure others will occur to me)

(Once I've got these done - who knows when - I'd be happy to adapt them for the main site)

Maria

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: MrDemeanour 
  To: imc-uk-process 
  Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 9:58 AM
  Subject: Re: [Imc-uk-process] imc london on thumbnails

  <snip>
  Occasional snappers are contributors who may be new to their camera, or 
  new to the website, or who are unfamiliar with the processes involved in 
  presenting images on the web. Such people (I suspect) are liable to grab 
    snap from their smartcard, give it a perfunctory butchers, and upload 
  it, without considering its colour-depth, dimensions and so on.

  I find it annoying to open an article, only to have to wait 30 seconds 
  for the first photo in a photo-story to display; and then to find that I 
  can only see the top-left corner of the image without scrolling. I have 
  a DSL connection, but sometimes snaps still take this long to display. I 
  recall an announcement posted to the Oxford site last year, that 
  contained an incidental B+W bitmap image of a logo. The image was 12 
  megabytes in size, and took several minutes to download on a 512Mbps 
  connection. Once it arrived, you could see only the top-left corner of 
  it, which was plain white.

  This is a question of user education. I presume we would like to be able 
  to convert occasional snappers into regular photo-contributors. 
  Meanwhile, I presume we'd like to encourage occasional snappers to 
  continue to snap and upload, pending the completion of the education 
  process.
  <snip>


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