Re: [libreoffice-design] Redesign of Help > Send Feedback page

Hello again Mike,

Le dimanche 18 janvier 2015 à 11:28 +0000, Mike Hall a écrit :
> *Redesign of Help > Send Feedback page*
> The objective is to make users feel more welcome, to show them their 
> responsibilities and make it easier for them to find relevant help. As a 
> result, they may be more willing to provide feedback and perhaps to 
> contribute more to the project.
>
> A draft redesign is at:
> www.onepoyle.net/User_Role_and_Feedback.htm
>
> Comments are most welcome.
>
> I'll probably continue making minor edits for a few days, also to 
> reflect suggestions made here. Is there a better place to put this page? 
> It's currently parked on my website because I don't know what else to do.

In theory yes (the design team has a whole process for this, but as I am
part of the website team we can make the edits asap when we reach a
consensus. So let's work with what we have.

So far: I love what you did. Just a few ancillary comments. 
First line, "if you wish to become more involved" part: let's put this
as a direct link to this page:
http://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/

In the "Users have responsibilities" bullet list, the last comment about
telling other people about LibreOffice, we could at some point (maybe
not now) point to a simple repository of web banners, buttons, and of
course the "What's LibreOffice" page
(http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice/)

> I'd like to suggest changing the menu entry 'Send Feedback' to something 
> reflecting the intent of the edited page. 'User Role & Feedback...' is 
> the best I've come up with, but there is almost certainly something much 
> better. 24 characters maximum?

Not sure. "User Role" is somewhat confusing. I'd leave it as it is,
after all the text you have already added up is quite clear?

> Would it be a good thing to add the contents of the web page to LO Help 
> in due course? It would then be available offline and be translated.

I'm not sure exactly if I understand your correctly, do you mean to say
we should have these pointers on the About LibreOffice pop up window
inside the office suite? I would really like to have that; but we would
need to design it well, not just copy and past the contents of the page.
Another option would be to have it on first launch or something.

> I'm thinking of a logo for the page reflecting "Users first" but I'm not 
> a graphics designer. Any takers?
>
> What's all this about "User's First"? Colleagues working on LO do so for 
> a wide variety of understandable personal reasons. However, without a 
> substantial number of otherwise unengaged users, the project would be 
> likely to wither and die. Thus users are the essence of why the project 
> exists 

hmm... er. no. The project exists because people are happy to work on it
or are paid to work on it. Never because of users. It is really an
important distinction to have, although it is not overly helpful to
claim it everywhere; contributors work on whatever pleases them, but
hardly never for users. Implying this would be highly misleading (that's
what we learned during those ten years I was telling you about).

> and it makes sense to make their role and their needs fairly 
> central. This has been raked over many times, and I'm not keen to 
> restart the debate here, but any serious consideration of the 
> implications would certainly highlight the importance of very effective 
> QA on all released products.

Sorry to have restarted it :-) you are putting your finger on something
important, which is how do we engage users. It is important to make them
feel welcome - because we want new contributors; at the same time we
don't want to set false expectations, such as "users need to be listened
at, they need to say what they want as features in the software, how it
should be released, etc." ... because we are a Free Software project and
not a product. Products, even the ones based on Free Software, come with
customers, more or less paying for the product in one way or another.
They have the right to complain, and anyone distributing that product or
making it has a responsibility to take their feedback rather seriously.
Free Software on the other hand is not a product and has no
responsibility towards users beyond the rights conveyed by the license. 

But hey - thank you again for your input and your ideas, this is useful
and we're moving forward.

Best,

Charles.


> -- 
> Mike Hall
> www.onepoyle.net



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