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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Tip of the day
From:       Zak Jensen <coolguyzak () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-09-07 16:40:22
Message-ID: 21bb44f30509070940593ed96e () mail ! gmail ! com
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On 9/7/05, Harijs Buss <hbush@apollo.lv> wrote:
> On Wednesday 07 September 2005 16:19, Zak Jensen rakstija:
> 
> > The basic concept is to create an agent/daemon that tracks what the
> > user does, and offers tips that are relevent to that activity
> 
> M$ tried exactly such thing in one of Office releases (don't remember how was
> this "talking paper clip" called). This feature was universally claimed by
> majority of users as absolutely most annoying thing M$ has ever made, and
> excluded from following versions of MS Office.
> 
> People usually do not like idea of being watched and mentored all the time.

From what I have heard (and experienced) the troubling aspect for most
people was not that it monitored what you were doing. It was, instead,
that it wasy very "in your face" about what it would do. The agent
would pop up and constantly offer its services to you. When it was
displayed, it would animate itself, which would distract users from
what they were doing. It had disturbing sound effects. And, possibly
the worst aspect of the whole thing, was very difficult to turn off.
It was fist available (I believe) in Office 2000. It may still be in
office now.

My idea is much less intrusive. It would only monitor your activities
when either:
A) You had "usability logging" enabled, or
B) When the "KTips plasmoid" was displayed on the screen.
In all other circumstances, the agent would not be active, or even
loaded into the screen.

In addition, it would not display an annoying animated agent. The
whole concept rests on the foundation of the agent being within a
passive plasmoid. If a user doesn't want the tips, they can close the
plasmoid. If enabled, the plasmoid would be largely inert. It might
update once every 5-10 minutes, wouldn't scroll, and wouldn't utilize
dialogs or pop ups to communicate with the user.

Another key function of this is it provides "tips". It monitors user
activity over a long period of time, and adjusts the tips displayed
based on that activity. It doesn't have the "it looks like you are
making a letter" functionality.
 
> Maybe would be worth to make such feature as special "learning option". But
> God save Linux if this would become the default.

That is what I intended it for. It doesn't aid the user at every turn.
The premise behind the whole thing was making KTips more applicable &
less annoying.
 
> Harry
>
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