Troubleshooting Guide

[Dougie Richardson]

Hi Phil,
[snip] 
> I think that we should define more clearly what we mean by
> "troubleshooting". I see troubleshooting as a way of helping users with
> a certain *type* of problem to diagnose the exact cause of the problem
> so that they can solve it.

<Dons HCI hat>

The definition of troubleshooting must reference the interaction element.
FAQs are what they are, questions oft asked. I would define troubleshooting
as:

"A dynamic help system that responds to user choices to guide the user to
the most likely solution."

</un-dons HCI hat>

I am increasingly becoming of the opinion that something beyond the scope of
just documentation is needed in "Connecting to the Internet". I started
coding something[1] a while back but am way too busy to see any real
progress in this release cycle. I am however likely to actually finish the
spec so that someone with more time could pitch in.

[snip]

> I agree. We should specify what the broad problem is that we're trying
> to solve (e.g. "I can't connect to the Internet"), research common
> causes of this problem and then build the troubleshooting information
> around them.

Well, we made significant strides in this area (Connecting I mean). We also
discovered an unforeseen problem - if after string freeze one developer
slightly changes the wording of a menu then a static page can often still be
worked around. If, as happened last time, the writer of lshw completely
changes it's output structure then we are left with a pretty much unusable
document.

Cheers,

Dougie

[1] https://launchpad.net/wireless-helper