[xwiki-devs] [UX] Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch
Hi, We did some usability testing sessions and found out that one of the biggest problems users are facing is that they don't understand the Home - Wiki - Space - Page concepts. Because of this confusion: - they are creating a wiki instead of a space or a page, - they don't know where they are located when looking at a page (in the main wiki or in a subwiki), - they don't know how to navigate to the pages they've created, - very confused that we have a Main space in every wiki, - they are having a hard time making a difference between a space and an application, - hard to understand everything is a page, - etc. We could do many things in order to improve our navigation, but one thing I want us to focus in this mail thread is the explanation of Wiki - Space - Page concepts on the Main.WebHome. Currently the content of the Welcome Block is: = Welcome to your wiki =
It's an easy-to-edit website that will help you work better together. This Wiki is made of //pages// sorted by //spaces//. You're currently in the **Main** space, looking at its home page (**WebHome**).
Learn how to use XWiki with the [[Getting Started Guide]]
You can then use the [[Sandbox space]] to try out your wiki's features.
I would like to replace this message with an introductory text that explain the concepts (there were also some ideas that maybe we need some images to represent the hierarchy, etc.) and I need your opinion on this subject. So, how would you pitch the Wiki - Space - Page concepts to newcomers? Thanks, Caty
My 2 cents: A wiki = a website (or a drive). A space = a folder (BTW, the space icon is actually a folder icon!). A page = a page inside that folder. "In XWiki, everything is a page, including the users and the applications." 2014-07-31 11:13 GMT+02:00 Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) <[email protected]>:
Hi,
We did some usability testing sessions and found out that one of the biggest problems users are facing is that they don't understand the Home - Wiki - Space - Page concepts. Because of this confusion: - they are creating a wiki instead of a space or a page, - they don't know where they are located when looking at a page (in the main wiki or in a subwiki), - they don't know how to navigate to the pages they've created, - very confused that we have a Main space in every wiki, - they are having a hard time making a difference between a space and an application, - hard to understand everything is a page, - etc.
We could do many things in order to improve our navigation, but one thing I want us to focus in this mail thread is the explanation of Wiki - Space - Page concepts on the Main.WebHome.
Currently the content of the Welcome Block is:
= Welcome to your wiki =
It's an easy-to-edit website that will help you work better together.
This
Wiki is made of //pages// sorted by //spaces//. You're currently in the **Main** space, looking at its home page (**WebHome**).
Learn how to use XWiki with the [[Getting Started Guide]]
You can then use the [[Sandbox space]] to try out your wiki's features.
I would like to replace this message with an introductory text that explain the concepts (there were also some ideas that maybe we need some images to represent the hierarchy, etc.) and I need your opinion on this subject.
So, how would you pitch the Wiki - Space - Page concepts to newcomers?
Thanks, Caty _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
Just a thought. It seems that the 'wiki - space - page' is a hard concept to get; maybe it's too complex, maybe it's not intuitive. I heard once that we should use 'folder' instead of 'space'. My thought is the following: do we need to explain a hard concept or do we need to simplify it? However, 'simplifying' is probably a big work to do. In a short-term action plan, a pitch to explain these concepts is a good idea. -- Jean On jeu., 2014-07-31 at 12:13 +0300, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) wrote:
Hi,
We did some usability testing sessions and found out that one of the biggest problems users are facing is that they don't understand the Home - Wiki - Space - Page concepts. Because of this confusion: - they are creating a wiki instead of a space or a page, - they don't know where they are located when looking at a page (in the main wiki or in a subwiki), - they don't know how to navigate to the pages they've created, - very confused that we have a Main space in every wiki, - they are having a hard time making a difference between a space and an application, - hard to understand everything is a page, - etc.
We could do many things in order to improve our navigation, but one thing I want us to focus in this mail thread is the explanation of Wiki - Space - Page concepts on the Main.WebHome.
Currently the content of the Welcome Block is:
= Welcome to your wiki =
It's an easy-to-edit website that will help you work better together. This Wiki is made of //pages// sorted by //spaces//. You're currently in the **Main** space, looking at its home page (**WebHome**).
Learn how to use XWiki with the [[Getting Started Guide]]
You can then use the [[Sandbox space]] to try out your wiki's features.
I would like to replace this message with an introductory text that explain the concepts (there were also some ideas that maybe we need some images to represent the hierarchy, etc.) and I need your opinion on this subject.
So, how would you pitch the Wiki - Space - Page concepts to newcomers?
Thanks, Caty _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
I don't like the idea of renaming space (again). If new people don't understand it easily, better we find an efficient way to educate them than to rename the concept so that old people won't understand it either. The tragedy of renaming things is that the code becomes unapproachable with surprises like XWD_WEB which only the well informed know is a table representing the names of *spaces* which once upon a time were known as *webs*. On 08/01/2014 09:47 AM, Jean SIMARD wrote:
Just a thought. It seems that the 'wiki - space - page' is a hard concept to get; maybe it's too complex, maybe it's not intuitive. I heard once that we should use 'folder' instead of 'space'.
My thought is the following: do we need to explain a hard concept or do we need to simplify it?
However, 'simplifying' is probably a big work to do. In a short-term action plan, a pitch to explain these concepts is a good idea. -- Jean
On jeu., 2014-07-31 at 12:13 +0300, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) wrote:
Hi,
We did some usability testing sessions and found out that one of the biggest problems users are facing is that they don't understand the Home - Wiki - Space - Page concepts. Because of this confusion: - they are creating a wiki instead of a space or a page, - they don't know where they are located when looking at a page (in the main wiki or in a subwiki), - they don't know how to navigate to the pages they've created, - very confused that we have a Main space in every wiki, - they are having a hard time making a difference between a space and an application, - hard to understand everything is a page, - etc.
We could do many things in order to improve our navigation, but one thing I want us to focus in this mail thread is the explanation of Wiki - Space - Page concepts on the Main.WebHome.
Currently the content of the Welcome Block is:
= Welcome to your wiki =
It's an easy-to-edit website that will help you work better together. This Wiki is made of //pages// sorted by //spaces//. You're currently in the **Main** space, looking at its home page (**WebHome**).
Learn how to use XWiki with the [[Getting Started Guide]]
You can then use the [[Sandbox space]] to try out your wiki's features.
I would like to replace this message with an introductory text that explain the concepts (there were also some ideas that maybe we need some images to represent the hierarchy, etc.) and I need your opinion on this subject.
So, how would you pitch the Wiki - Space - Page concepts to newcomers?
Thanks, Caty _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
I agree with Caleb, I don’t really like renaming it too since this means a discrepancy between code and UI. I think it’s enough to explain the analogy on the home page. BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - explain to the user that he’s meant to edit the home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy. This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. WDYT? Thanks -Vincent On 1 Aug 2014 at 10:39:38, Caleb James DeLisle ([email protected](mailto:[email protected])) wrote:
I don't like the idea of renaming space (again).
If new people don't understand it easily, better we find an efficient way to educate them than to rename the concept so that old people won't understand it either. The tragedy of renaming things is that the code becomes unapproachable with surprises like XWD_WEB which only the well informed know is a table representing the names of *spaces* which once upon a time were known as *webs*.
On 08/01/2014 09:47 AM, Jean SIMARD wrote:
Just a thought. It seems that the 'wiki - space - page' is a hard concept to get; maybe it's too complex, maybe it's not intuitive. I heard once that we should use 'folder' instead of 'space'.
My thought is the following: do we need to explain a hard concept or do we need to simplify it?
However, 'simplifying' is probably a big work to do. In a short-term action plan, a pitch to explain these concepts is a good idea. -- Jean
On jeu., 2014-07-31 at 12:13 +0300, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) wrote:
Hi,
We did some usability testing sessions and found out that one of the biggest problems users are facing is that they don't understand the Home - Wiki - Space - Page concepts. Because of this confusion: - they are creating a wiki instead of a space or a page, - they don't know where they are located when looking at a page (in the main wiki or in a subwiki), - they don't know how to navigate to the pages they've created, - very confused that we have a Main space in every wiki, - they are having a hard time making a difference between a space and an application, - hard to understand everything is a page, - etc.
We could do many things in order to improve our navigation, but one thing I want us to focus in this mail thread is the explanation of Wiki - Space - Page concepts on the Main.WebHome.
Currently the content of the Welcome Block is:
= Welcome to your wiki =
It's an easy-to-edit website that will help you work better together. This Wiki is made of //pages// sorted by //spaces//. You're currently in the **Main** space, looking at its home page (**WebHome**).
Learn how to use XWiki with the [[Getting Started Guide]]
You can then use the [[Sandbox space]] to try out your wiki's features.
I would like to replace this message with an introductory text that explain the concepts (there were also some ideas that maybe we need some images to represent the hierarchy, etc.) and I need your opinion on this subject.
So, how would you pitch the Wiki - Space - Page concepts to newcomers?
Thanks, Caty
Hi, 2014-07-31 11:13 GMT+02:00 Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) <[email protected]>:
Hi,
We did some usability testing sessions and found out that one of the biggest problems users are facing is that they don't understand the Home - Wiki - Space - Page concepts. Because of this confusion: - they are creating a wiki instead of a space or a page, - they don't know where they are located when looking at a page (in the main wiki or in a subwiki), - they don't know how to navigate to the pages they've created, - very confused that we have a Main space in every wiki, - they are having a hard time making a difference between a space and an application, - hard to understand everything is a page,
- etc.
We could do many things in order to improve our navigation, but one thing I want us to focus in this mail thread is the explanation of Wiki - Space - Page concepts on the Main.WebHome.
Currently the content of the Welcome Block is:
= Welcome to your wiki =
It's an easy-to-edit website that will help you work better together.
This
Wiki is made of //pages// sorted by //spaces//. You're currently in the **Main** space, looking at its home page (**WebHome**).
Learn how to use XWiki with the [[Getting Started Guide]]
You can then use the [[Sandbox space]] to try out your wiki's features.
I would like to replace this message with an introductory text that explain the concepts (there were also some ideas that maybe we need some images to represent the hierarchy, etc.) and I need your opinion on this subject.
So, how would you pitch the Wiki - Space - Page concepts to newcomers?
I think I rephrased and rewrote my answer a thousand time with no real success :-) I came to this: "This website consists of pages that you can easily create and edit, all from your browser. Each page has a name, a title, an author and some content. Some pages can be "special", like blog posts, user profiles, administration sections, etc, but you can edit them like any other page. Those pages are grouped under spaces, to help you organize content, like shelves in a library, or folders on your disk. It's not just one website though: if needed you can create multiple wikis, each with its own set of spaces and pages. You are currently in the home page ("WebHome") of the home space ("Main") of the home wiki ("Home")." My idea was to focus on pages first, because that's the most important imho. I tried to put "everything is a page" some other way, because I think this sentence is striking and frightening sometimes to users. They don't see what it means because it's very technical in fact. What seems important is that you can edit anything (blog posts, admin conf, etc) exactly like you would edit any page. The fact that it IS a page in fact, is just a detail, that you mostly need to know when you start doing some developments in your wiki. Around navigation (and even welcome text, maybe), I think there's still a difference between the "farm" mode (massive amount of wikis) and what was previously called the "workspaces", even if it's the same thing now technically. For example in "workspace" mode, I may like to have the list of existing wikis part of my site map, and even listed directly somewhere under the "Home" menu. Because usually in "workspace" mode, it's really a unique website, but split over several sub-wikis for convenience (and as a workaround of the unique level of spaces). This is what I did using the Menu application BTW, in my instance. You wouldn't do that in farm mode obviously. Regarding panels, it could be useful, to have possibility to "stick" some panels, ie decide to have them displayed whatever inherited configuration in below wikis/spaces/pages. Typically, if I create a "Menu" or "Site map" panel, I'd like to have it displayed all the time. Currently if I go to "Blog" space it will disappear and be replaced by app specific panels. App specific panels are very nice, but some panels should remain everytime. Something close to maven sites menu inheritance (you could choose inherit yes/no, location top/bottom, etc...).
Thanks, Caty _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
participants (6)
-
Caleb James DeLisle -
Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) -
Guillaume "Louis-Marie" Delhumeau -
Jean SIMARD -
Jeremie BOUSQUET -
vincent＠massol.net