Hello everyone!

[Phil Bull]

Hi Matt,

On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 21:43 +0100, Matthew East wrote:
> >      * Users who've just switched to Ubuntu and don't know where
> >        anything is (possible solution: brief desktop tour)
> >      * Users who've just switched and are having problems with
> >        something (with a particular focus on hardware issues)
[...]
> I think that both of these use cases are two of the most obvious
> situations that our help centre is supposed to help with! If we're not
> helping those people, then we're not doing a great job with the help
> centre... Have you got some ideas about what those users aren't
> getting from our help centre?

I think that our failing on the first point is that new users aren't
pointed directly at relevant documentation when they first log in. If a
user doesn't know where anything is, we should make it as easy/obvious
as possible for them to access the introductory information. As it is,
they need to figure out how to open the Help Centre and click two links
to get to "An overview of your desktop and how to use it", which isn't
that instructive anyway. This is part of a wider issue of getting people
to use the built-in docs.

With the second point, I think that software to do the heavy lifting of
troubleshooting would be more user-friendly than text describing how to
troubleshoot hardware problems manually. It would certainly solve the
user's problem quicker.

Whether a welcome centre-type application is a good way of addressing
these points is another thing entirely, I suppose.

Thanks,

Phil

-- 
Phil Bull
https://launchpad.net/people/philbull