* Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by tatewise »

My concept is primarily to have a User Guide but within each topic it links to the Technical Manual pages, rather than having two virtually separate wiki.

Lorna, than you for the feedback. The relatively new alphabetic_index|> Knowledge Base Index is still in its infancy and needs index tags adding to all the relevant existing pages with all the appropriate keywords such as Transfer or Move.
I don't have a enough hours in the day to do it on my own. I have tried to use alternative index keywords where I thought appropriate, so some topics are indexed under more than one keyword. If you would like to help fill in any blanks you detect, then please do so. The more of us that enhance the KB, then the sooner it will improve.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

tatewise wrote: 07 Feb 2020 14:48 ...
I sometimes wonder whether newcomers (and maybe others) take quite a while to discover the Knowledge Base despite the links on the Forum and Home pages. So maybe some form of landing page panels for the Forum page would be a good idea to highlight the various FHUG resoucres?
I totally agree - plus users do not necessarily find the Forum or FHUG home pages. Some may not expect such things, so don't look for them.

Hence my comments about splash screens (although I think we keep them simple with links to webpages that can then more easily be edited and updated).
Google Earth Splash Screen (note basic guidance, link to further help, and Do not Show again check box)
Google Earth Splash Screen (note basic guidance, link to further help, and Do not Show again check box)
Google Earth Splash Screen from 2020-02-07 15-37-30.png (55.46 KiB) Viewed 11748 times
tatewise wrote: 07 Feb 2020 14:48 Yes this wiki can keep text in one place for editorial purposes and display it in different contexts (just like shared Note records in FH). I can show you some existing examples if you like. See contributeyourknowledge:create_and_manage_pages#shared_page_contents|> Shared Page Contents.
That is the exact parallel to Server Side Includes that I had in mind. Do others have a view how easily this feature might be used to implement "Best Practice Guidance" as a series of "User Tips" embedded in a User Guide and a series of "Technical Implementation Statements" embedded in a Technical Manual with both embedded in a curated Best Practice Guide?
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by tatewise »

User really ought to find FHUG as there are loads of cross-ref links in the FH Help menu and FH website support pages. Plus we keep directly Mailing List users to come here.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 07 Feb 2020 15:33 Davidf, I would be amazed if FH7 wasn't feature-locked by now!
Yes, but this is not really a core feature change, but part of a start up routine that is dismissed before the user starts interacting.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained?

Is it worth bumping in an Enhancement Request and making separate contact to ensure that Calico Pie are aware of how our thoughts are developing?

They may even turn round and say "It's already there - what would you like to see on the linked pages?"
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

I'll check with Jane -- it will be quicker.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

tatewise wrote: 07 Feb 2020 15:50 User really ought to find FHUG as there are loads of cross-ref links in the FH Help menu and FH website support pages. Plus we keep directly Mailing List users to come here.
So how many copies of FH are in use and how does that compare to the number of registered FHUG Forum members or Mailing List users?

And how many of us have found and read the Quick Start Guide? Should we direct people to it?
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

From another thread:
luckily I have no customisations of which I am aware
We either
have some users who never create a custom query or custom text scheme or new facts
or
who do not recognise these as customisations.

Necessarily sobering for those of us thinking about improving access to help?
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by Jane »

I doubt functional changes to 7 will be considered now.

As Mike says the help on the support page for Family Historian lists fhug. I doubt very much they will want to link into the "bowels" of FHUG as someone could assume that everything written here is "gospel" according to Calico Pie, which is it not.

> have some users who never create a custom query or custom text scheme or new facts

Yes, probably more than 80% of users simply use the program out of the box. When I have run courses a large percentage on the courses, have never even run a standard query.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

So how many copies of FH are in use
We can have no idea because (a) nobody will disclose sales figures and (b) nobody can know whether a purchased copy is still being used.
how does that compare to the number of registered FHUG Forum members
What about lurkers, who read the forums and the Knowledgebase and never feel the need to ask a question? Ideally the knowledgebase would convert everybody into lurkers (isn't going to happen though).
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Yes, probably more than 80% of users simply use the program out of the box. When I have run courses a large percentage on the courses, have never even run a standard query.
And just as likely, 80% of users never ask a question here. They've relied on the Help within FH and the Getting the Best Out of...
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

Jane wrote: 07 Feb 2020 16:04 ... I doubt very much they will want to link into the "bowels" of FHUG as someone could assume that everything written here is "gospel" according to Calico Pie, which is it not.
Which is why I was suggesting that the links should be to the www.family-historian.co.uk website - that way they retain control. Initially (particularly in a compressed timescale) the linked pages could just redirect to the https://www.family-historian.co.uk/supp ... t-overview (support home page) - which currently supplies links to FHUG.

We could then develop landing pages "New Users", "Upgraders", and "Migrants". Calico Pie could then decide whether to either own this content and get their linked pages to hold the content of these pages - or to get their pages to redirect to ours.

Either way the programs need to know where to direct their links - and that has to be to Calico Pie webpages.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

I think we're trying to over-complicate things, and (a) we ought to concentrate on what is under our control as users (our own Knowledgebase, including our freedom to restructure it as we wish decoupled from anything Calico Pie do; (b) prioritise the chunks in which we're going to eat the elephant.

My stab at the first chunks of elephant are:
  1. Agree our target audiences (including their characteristics) and prioritise when we address them -- we can't do everything at once, so user guides may take precedence of technical guides, to the extent that we do nothing on the technical stuff until the user stuff is largely complete
  2. Agree style guidance, which may include some 'structure stuff' -- like "include a link to technical material rather than embed it in the user guide" or whatever we decide... but
  3. Understand if we're restricted to the current platform, or whether we can/will migrate to a new platform -- if we migrate to a new platform we will have new opportunities/constraints (pop-out technical guidance, collapsing technical guidance, elephants dancing across the page,...) but whether we do or not is solely Jane's decision, as she has to do the technical work.
  4. If we are moving to a new platform, commission it and familiarise ourselves with it.
  5. Sketch out a top level structure
I also have a 0th item on the list -- agree a project management tool -- we are not going to get this done unless we come at it in a structured fashion. Anyone familiar with Trello? I'm not suggesting we abandon the forums for working through the process of agreeing on different topics such as the ones I've mentioned above, but we need somewhere to keep track of what is going on and what has been agreed/implemented.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

I partially agree,

The general consensus seems to be that we are concerned that people are not using the supplied help (especially the knowledge base) but are asking similar questions on the Forum and the Mailing LIst.

There is a consensus (probably strong, but not quite as strong as the above consensus) that this is due to two reasons
  1. People are not finding the help
  2. Once found, they are finding it impenetrable
Your elephant eating suggestions seem a very sensible way to move forward on (2) above. Mouthfuls 1 and 2 seem to be required whatever other decisions are made.

If Mouthful 3 is a genuine issue it needs to be resolved swiftly (I have no particular feelings either way - probably due to inexperience). I suspect that it will be resolved by the choice of wiki software that the FHUG hosts are prepared to support and Jane's final decision. Can it be decided, implemented and bedded in before we start loading FH7 content?

How much is Mouthful 5 dependent on 3 and if necessary 4?

Mouthful 0 seems like a good suggestion - I don't think the Forum or Wiki would make good project management tools (!) and some form of tool is required given who might be available, and what skills and time they have and can / cannot commit. I suspect that a traditional PM tool would not cope with the required flexibility without putting a huge project (re)planning load on a project manager.

In respect of issue (1) I am just flagging that with FH7 downloads and CDs being prepared in the next few weeks, there is a fast closing (closed?) opportunity to create a little bit of functionality that Calico Pie could later customise independently of the actual program and its installers to address the issue of people not finding the Knowledgebase.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Can it be decided, implemented and bedded in before we start loading FH7 content?
I suspect not, so we will have to generate FH7 content (hopefully using new style guides) within the old strucutre/platofrm and then migrate it along with all the other content.

I think we can make some progress on Mouthful 5 (structure) independent of 3/4 (platform) -- if worst comes to the worst we implement the new structure using the old facilities.

I'll admit, I'm tempted by the possibilities posed by migration (to have a root and branch review of everything) but we shouldn't under-estimate the workload that would involve.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by tatewise »

I agree about establishing our audience, and a lot has been said about newcomers, migrators, upgraders and customisation, but I would guess the majority of the wiki is how to use the standard features, individual relationships, diagrams, reports, media, source citations, backup/restore, etc.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by LornaCraig »

tatewise wrote: 07 Feb 2020 15:43 The relatively new alphabetic_index|> Knowledge Base Index is still in its infancy and needs index tags adding to all the relevant existing pages with all the appropriate keywords such as Transfer or Move.
I don't have a enough hours in the day to do it on my own. I have tried to use alternative index keywords where I thought appropriate, so some topics are indexed under more than one keyword. If you would like to help fill in any blanks you detect, then please do so. The more of us that enhance the KB, then the sooner it will improve.
We all appreciate the time you spend on this Mike. I know I could, and probably should, learn how to make additions to the Index but I don’t think I have time to learn right now. However I’m happy to make suggestions for more index words, based on the kind of questions often which come up in the forums:

Move and Transfer (data, customisations) – as discussed already
Merge (records, projects)
Duplicate records (merging of, also refer to Find Duplicate Individuals plugin)
PDF (why FH doesn’t display them, how to convert to image format if desired. Also ‘saving as’ PDF for diagrams, reports)
Project (structure of)
Wrong parent/child (how to unlink and relink)
Under Customisation add link to migrating/moving/transferring to new PC
Under Diagrams add the first two items which are already under Printing (i.e. Getting ready to Print Diagrams, and Single Page PDF of a Diagram)
Under Media and Photographs give a clue what to do if they are not displayed, i.e. add link to ‘Changing External File Links’ page.

Very often people start a question by saying “I couldn’t find anything about this in the Knowledge Base…” so we know they have tried. They have probably visited the site to look up one specific problem and want to go straight to the relevant page. I remain convinced that they would find it easier if they could find the words they are thinking of in the index.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 07 Feb 2020 17:12
Can it be decided, implemented and bedded in before we start loading FH7 content?
I suspect not, so we will have to generate FH7 content (hopefully using new style guides) within the old strucutre/platofrm and then migrate it along with all the other content.

I think we can make some progress on Mouthful 5 (structure) independent of 3/4 (platform) -- if worst comes to the worst we implement the new structure using the old facilities.

I'll admit, I'm tempted by the possibilities posed by migration (to have a root and branch review of everything) but we shouldn't under-estimate the workload that would involve.
Migration in many ways forces a "root and branch" review, but if that is the objective we might be able to do so with the existing wiki.

I know that Wordpress (blogging) allows multi-site operation (so I could run two apparently separate blogs on the same host). If our knowledgebase wiki software and hosts allow multiple installs (or a multi-site install) on the FHUG host, we could set up a "clean site", put in the usage customisations (I read of macro plugins etc.) that we agree we want to carry over and then start afresh. Possibly:
  • Home Page with Panels offering different "paths" for different users
    • New Users
      • New to Genealogy
      • Migrating to FH
    • Upgraders
    • Reinstallers
    • Established Users
  • Behind this a number of structured "volumes"
    • User Guide - Workflow oriented
    • Technical Manual - Functionality oriented
    • Best Practice Usage - "Genealogy" oriented??
    The paths will then have some form of contents/index which will access aspects of these volumes ...?
We could then populate such a structure (trying to avoid inappropriate cutting and pasting from the old wiki).

That does not require migrating to different software - assuming a "multi-install" is possible. Mike I think has previously set up a sort of virtual "multi-install"?

That approach would cut out the need for a learning curve for new software.

However if a change in software is seriously contemplated we (or someone!) needs to be discussing why, what justification, and where/how we would migrate.

As an aside, Trello - which is not something I have actually used - has been highlighted by Sophos Security as having a few issues with administrators setting up inappropriate access rules resulting in the leaking of personal data. If we go this route for managing a change we either need to keep the Trello group very closed or take great care with running a "public" group. So we need someone who understands the issues wrt Trello. Is that you Helen?
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by tatewise »

Helen and I rebuilt the contributeyourknowledge:index|> Contribute Your Knowledge section simply by creating a new root page and building everything under that. When complete, we just replaced the old root page with the new page contents.

I assume we are primarily talking about how_to:index|> Family Historian (but not forgetting the other root topics).
It currently uses a legacy root page called How To and by adding a root page Family Historian we could build everything under that, which has the advantage that potentially all the new subsidiary pages are visible to anyone who wants to review them or get involved. Also any existing pages that are in a suitable form can be directly linked.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

To address the Trello issue, I was definitely not thinking of public access but private with invites to specific email addresses; in addition there should be no need to include any PII on the board.

I'll check with Jane about a platform change and/or dual running of the current platform. Two very good reasons for migration may be ease of maintainability and ease of use (neither of which the current platform scores high on IMO).

I'm more worried that we're talking at cross purposes about the front page... I don't see it having different panels for different users, but different panels for different topic groups-- one of which might be 'Getting Started' and another of which might be 'Installing and Upgrading' -- without dictating what route through the users take. Task orientation, not assuming any workflow. If I want to know how to do X, I don't want to guess whether its a beginners, regular or advanced topic and wade through a 'volume' -- I just want to find how to do X as quickly as possible, preferably in a bite-sized chunk of information. So no 'volumes' but lots of 'articles' that can be accessed via the front page (How do I do X), a search facility, an Index of keywords, and maybe some pages that group articles into related 'volumes'. We should not be producing indigestible walls of text.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

We had the advantage, Mike, that nobody ever cared about Contributing their Knowledge, so having a restructured set of pages in-flight but still publicly accessible wasn't a problem. I don't think that will work for the whole KnowledgeBase, even if we had agreed (which we haven't) that the root topics are correct. (IMO they're too high level to be of any use to users) -- they already know they want to know about Family Historian -- their interests are much more granular than that).

I think we have to construct any new KB out of sight until its ready from primetime.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by ColinMc »

I haven't had any time over the last couple of days (or over the next week) to add my bit, but usability must be the basis of any changes.

I'm a new user with only 2 to 3 years experience, but I have bought the Calico Pie book, and have read many pages in the KB. I'm also pretty computer literate as I build and maintain PC's for friends and family members. I am not an genealogy expert tho.

Even so, I find the whole KB hard work. When I find an article, it is usually pretty good, but getting there is the issue. As a non expert, I often do not know the (correct) name of the particular feature I'm looking for, so searching does not make it easy.

The Index is an improvement, but it needs help. This is a common failing, the Index in the Calico Pie booklet is pretty unhelpful, as is often the case with other software. Experts tend to write these docs - users work and think on a different level.

But there is no point in trying to change the world. However easy we make it, we should accept that the old 80/20 rule probably applies here, and most people will head straight for the Forum. It is so much easier to ask a question than to search or look through an index.

One of the problems with the Forum is also that it is too good! I use forums for other products, and nowhere is the speed of service or the quality of advice as good as I see here. Other forums rarely reach this level, and once you experienced it, why would you waste time searching when one of the main half dozen (or so) responders will have the answer in moments!

However, I suspect this also dissuades other less expert members from responding. The same I suspect also applies to Contribute your Knowledge.

So my suggestion is that the articles as they stand are pretty good, concentrate on the front page to make navigation easy and get the index to be a great index, and above all, KEEP IT SIMPLE.

This still won't have a major effects on many users, but it might chip away at some of them. Lets aim for 75/25 to start with.
Colin McDonald - Researching McDonald, McGillivray, Tait, Rountree families
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by tatewise »

I am a little concerned about how much that is being proposed should be taken on.
It seems to be a significant rewrite of at least the Family Historian section on a new platform with new tools.

It took Helen and I most of a year, with the usual real life interruptions, to revamp the Contribute Your Knowledge section which consists of about 10 KB pages.

The Family Historian section consists of about 180 KB pages, so at the same rate will take about 18 years.
With twice as many helpers and a lot fewer interruptions, it may still take over 4 years.
Then there is the rest of the KB.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by davidf »

tatewise wrote: 08 Feb 2020 19:16 I am a little concerned about how much that is being proposed should be taken on.
It seems to be a significant rewrite of at least the Family Historian section on a new platform with new tools.
I think "new platform with new tools" arises from Helen pondering if there is a better platform. She may resolve this pondering within a few days? Or is there a wider feeling that we should move the Knowledgebase to a different software platform?

What are the major (limiting) issues with the present platform? Or are platform considerations a distraction?

I appreciate that there is a huge investment in what we currently have; but it is a sunk cost and we need to dispassionately say what is the best further use of available effort to get the desired result? That could involve anything from a complete start from scratch through a restructuring of what we have to a more minor set of cosmetic changes. I think your point rules out a complete start from scratch, but I don't think cosmetic changes are going to get people using the knowledgebase to avoid asking the questions that you are concerned are having to be repeatedly answered.

If we are agreeing on the Technical Manual and User Guide Approach, I think the good news is that you have got the Technical Manual fairly close to as complete as it gets. The User Guide is still a bit of an unknown quantity but there are already some suitable bits around either in the knowledgebase or (referable) on the family-historian support pages. It does not have to be done in "one go" but can be prioritised based on issues that we see on the mailing list and the forum. However we may find the major value comes from how we tie it together and make it all suitably accessible.
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Re: Improving Accessibility of Commonly Requested Help

Post by tatewise »

David, your suggestions are closer to what I had expected would be proposed.

The main challenge Helen & I faced with Contribute Your Knowledge was its top level structure.
It was organised into Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced and Technical Reference sections.
Now it is Task & Feature oriented with sections progressing through features from basic to complex. Go take a look.
Very little of the underlying technical advice needed rewriting, but simply reorganising.

The Family Historian section mostly suffers the same Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced structure.
( This is a legacy structure inherited from many many years ago. )
It has advice for features such as Diagrams and Reports appearing in multiple sections.
My strategy was to reorganise the top level structure to be Task or Feature oriented.
Then all the advice related to Diagrams would be in one section, and for Reports in another section, and so on.
I imagine that would come close to a Technical Manual but the underlying existing advice would need little change.

BTW: Part of the Glossary of Features section is structured around the FH Command Line Menus which might be another top level structure strategy, not instead of, but as well as the above structure.

As you say David, there is a great deal of User Guide material already in existence and I think most is mentioned in the how_to:family_historian_documentation|> Family Historian Documentation page.

If some umbrella 'splash page' existed for all the above and the alphabetic_index|> Knowledge Base Index was expanded, then maybe we could achieve 80% of our objectives with only 20% of the effort, i.e. nearer 1 year.

Those multiple overview/umbrella pages will all share the same detail advice pages, so there would be no duplication.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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