Recent Doc Team meeting - Poll idea (Do people really use computer-based help?)

[Jared Norris]

On 10 May 2014 07:11, Jim Byrnes <jf_byrnes at comcast.net> wrote:

> On 05/09/2014 03:14 PM, Peter Matulis wrote:
>
>> On 05/09/2014 01:51 PM, Penelope Stowe wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Peter Matulis
>>> <peter.matulis at canonical.com <mailto:peter.matulis at canonical.com>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>      Last Wednesday (May 7) we there was a Doc team meeting [1] and an
>>> idea
>>>      surfaced that an attempt be made to determine the general level of
>>>      readership/usage of the help/doc facility in Ubuntu (Desktop).
>>>      Including this facility involves participation in a rigid set of
>>>      development/packaging rules & schedule that may not be worth the
>>>      trouble.
>>>
>>>      Preliminary poll:
>>>
>>>      << Do people think conducting such a poll is worthwhile? >>
>>>
>>>
>>> Who would targeted as responders to said poll? If you only poll current
>>> Ubuntu users, you're probably going to get a different answer than if
>>> you poll current users as well as trying to get answers from current
>>> Windows and MacOS users who could potentially use Ubuntu down the road.
>>> I've done informal polling of this exact question among people I know
>>> and there's definitely a difference between the people I know who use
>>> Ubuntu (who tend to be slightly more technologically savvy) and those
>>> who use Windows/MacOS, but are part of the stated target of making
>>> Ubuntu friendly to/usable by everyone.
>>>
>>> My opinion on whether a poll would be useful does depend on knowing who
>>> would be the target of such a poll. There are ways to get non-technical
>>> and non-Ubuntu users to answer a poll on this question. If there's no
>>> decided target, then I will give a longer explanation of my thoughts.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for your thoughts Penelope.
>>
>> I think polling Ubuntu users is good enough since there are former
>> Windows/Mac users among them.  But you raise an interesting point:  do
>> we want to know whether a user will even *look* for in-computer help?
>> My original idea was to determine to what degree Ubuntu users first
>> *know* about it and, if so, whether they *use* it.
>>
>> I would rather avoid a hypothetical question such as: "If you were an
>> Ubuntu user would you look for in-computer help?".
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> peter matulis
>>
>>
>>
> Interesting question.  Until I read this thread I had forgotten about in
> computer help, so I went looking for it.  I am running 12.04 and there is
> no help icon on the top bar or the launcher.  It's possible that there was
> one on the launcher and I removed it, but I don't remember doing so.  I
> clicked the little gear at the top right corner of the top bar and didn't
> see any help there.  Finally I typed help into the dash search bar then I
> was able to access the in computer help.
>
> In 10.04 as I think there was a help item in the menus on the top bar. I
> guess what I am saying is if you want people to use it, it should be more
> accessible.
>
> I was new to linux when I started using 10.04 so I remember reading the in
> computer help at that time.  Now I usually google first and then come here
> with questions.  I guess I am saying that the more experience a user has
> the less they use the in computer help.
>
> Regards,  Jim
>
>
>
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I guess the real issue is for those who either:
* don't have reasonable access to the internet for whatever reason
* have a problem with their system that prevents accessing the internet

I think at times we (and I include myself) tend to assume that everyone is
faced with the same challenges but when in reality, it can be significantly
different.

Regards,

Jared Norris
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarednorris
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