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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Tip of the day
From:       Zak Jensen <coolguyzak () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-09-07 13:19:45
Message-ID: 21bb44f305090706197c042a41 () mail ! gmail ! com
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I have a thread on kde-artists concerning the usability of the ktips
dialog, and am postulating about what alternate functionality could be
used to replace it. It might be worthwhile to check out what is
already there:

http://kde-artists.org/main/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,48/expv,0/topic,207.0

The basic concept is to create an agent/daemon that tracks what the
user does, and offers tips that are relevent to that activity in a
"ktips plasmoid" which could be placed on one of the kickers. Not only
would it offer tips "Did you know that sliders can also be operated
with the mouse wheel?", "Did you know that this item is accessable via
the toolbar?" (etc), but it would also offer hyperlinks (possibly in a
later release) that would set things up for the user. "You seem to be
using Send picture as email alot, would you like me to add it to the
toolbar for you?" "You visit www.[...].com alot. Would you like me to
bookmark it?"

I am in my last year of college (CS), and as I suppose happens
elsewhere, I have a senior project to complete. I was hoping to get a
team together to implement a proof of concept/prototype/alpha that has
the potential to be integrated in KDE4. (Or at least tested for
usablility).

The idea is to offer tips that actually apply to what the user does
with his or her system, so that they have a higher chance of being
used. Of course, I don't want to create a klippy. One of my goals was
to keep it as un-intrusive as possible, hence it is an applet, not an
agent which pops up bothering you every 5 minutes.

Of course, it would eventually provide tips for everything within KDE,
not just the applications. So, for instance, it could help you set up
plasmoids on your desktop, enable additional eyecandy, etc.

The proof of concept would work with only a few applications at first
(3 at the most), and would probably need to be cleaned up heavially
for the KDE API. It would also include many many hooks into the action
system, so that the program could perform the tracking.

It wouldn't send any information to the KDE development effort, but if
such an API were implemented, it could be used to enable real-world
(and quite massive) usability studies. The data that it forwards could
be used to remove or hide unneccesary features, and automate others
(make the feature transparent to the user). Of course, if this were to
occur, we would first ask the user if they want to participate in the
study.

I encourage you to look it up, and discuss it on the list. If needed,
I'll post the contents of the thread here.

On 9/7/05, Benjamin Meyer <benjamin.meyer@trolltech.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday 07 September 2005 11:56 am, Ferdinand Gassauer wrote:
> > Am Mittwoch, 7. September 2005 10:06 schrieb Benjamin Meyer:
> > > I am curious if anyone knows of a study showing if the tip of the day
> > > dialog box is of any real value.  Logically when someone starts an
> > > application they want to do some task, not learn more about it.  Only
> > > later when they are having trouble they launch help and browse around,
> > > they don't want to have to restart the application just to view the tips.
> > >  Right?
> > >
> > > I know that even myself have on occasion read through them, but I have
> > > also read through some of the help docs.  Maybe that would be a better
> > > place to put the information.
> > >
> > > The reason I bring this up now is that we make changes like this for
> > > KDE4.
> > >
> > > -Benjamin Meyer
> >
> > IMHO in the Help menu it should say "useful tips", a popup of a (different)
> > message every day is not usefull for users. many even dare to uncheck the
> > "show Tips at startup", but they do not read and propable need it.
> 
> Haha, indeed in KMail's, konsole, etc help menu it is indeed there.  So maybe
> it would be good idea to rename it and remove the tips on startup
> functionality.
> 
> -Benjamin Meyer
> 
> 
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> kde-usability@kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
> 
> 
> 
>
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