Posted by
nnako on
Mar 01, 2014; 10:50am
URL: https://support.nabble.com/Basic-User-Manual-for-Nabble-tp7589558p7589611.html
Hi,
I would support Mintrax's points 100% when it is about building a community of satisfied customers on the long run. Not just a short term business idea to exploit people who have become dependent on the platform they have chosen in order to built their own community. A one-to-one support will not work when the user community is to grow. Even in our highly web-based world with searchable information scattered everywhere, a user manual must still be seen as the basis for information retrieval about a serious product. When there are questions and the answers are not covered by the manual or if the statements within the manual are not clear enough, people can ask their questions within the support forum. But the new and clarified information must go back into the (well structured!) user manual. A simple "list" is not considered as "well structured". Especially, because the Nabble team is so small, one person's focus should be on the provision of a structured user documentation. It would keep him from answering the same questions over and over again (always in different colors).
The problem is a MISSING UNDERSTANDING of the Nabble system. The need for understanding goes far beyond the description which button is to be pressed for standard operations. Rather the ability to decide in which direction to think when something unexpected happens. Real understanding of interfaces and concepts behind the functionality. Not necessarily on a source code level, but understandable.
GregChapman wrote
What level of knowledge can you assume in your readers?
How much of the basic operation of a forum needs to be explained?
Should it just be an administrator's, or a more general user's guide?
What level of experience in setting up multi-user software/computers can you assume (even for an Administrators Guide)?
Yes, the questions about the right choice of content and detail level are valid. But they should never keep a development team from documenting their product. On the contrary: they should spawn creative solutions. Even the community could (and would certainly) help document the system. When the right incentives are there. There are thousands of gifted people willing to support inspiring projects (it kind of works already with the Nabble translations).
GregChapman wrote
Currently, I have around 60 starred items in this forum which, when marked, I believed to be important options that can be coded within NAML or answers to FAQs. I now find myself regularly searching those posts for relevant terms within them before posting responses here.
Great. I myself have read all documentations about NAML, but I still don't understand the bigger picture so well. I still have to search for a starting point. It just takes too long. Having to dig into the pool of questions/answers always hoping that maybe someone might have asked my question before. And, after not finding the needed information, post a question and wait for an answer to hopefully get me going again...
So, don't put the responses here! Put them into a structured, detailed manual, where everybody interested will find them. ;-)
Why not look out for good documentation techniques within other projects? There are loads of them out there. And then adopt the design and structure. Some go away from pure textual description and use simple drawings (can be done with a pencil on paper) to convey key points which are just too hard to understand using just words (especially for non-tech users)...
GregChapman wrote
Certainly, one of the things that would be worth asking for is that every visible new feature (as distinct from invisible bug fixes) is reported in the "Nabble Latest Features" sub-forum...
Mentioning functions is one thing. Documenting the usage, how it fits into the overall system and how it supports the user while getting his things done, is an other, much more important thing. Promote understanding.
Please, let's start finding a way to provide reasonable user support. Thank you.