Re: Website impression

Ok yeah I agree with you. The nontechnical user is not really a prime  
audience, as far as I can tell. It would be though, if companies or  
organisations would be setting up commercial or noncommercial server  
solutions to which customers or users can subscribe. Suppose a provider  
would start offering OGo workspaces, whether for money, for an advertising  
platform, or as a noncommercial institution like a university (I don´t  
know the legal concerns here but I guess it would be possible; all of  
it?), then, particularly if it is offered in a commercial setting, it  
would be nice to have a website portion dedicated to end users. Of course,  
this shouldn´t be the OGo-group´s main point of interest. Nevertheless,  
end users will surely come here to get information.

However, me, as a #2, #3 and a technically inclined #5, was quite abashed  
by the website information feed. I was just looking to see what it was.  
Whether it could support my own needs. Not even collaboration needs,  
although I do have them atm, and the company I work at could surely SURELY  
use it, so that makes me a #1 as well ;), but just personal central  
storage needs.

Greetings,

Bart

Op Sun, 02 Oct 2005 22:06:12 +0200 schreef Joe Auty <[email protected]>:

> I agree with what has been said here. It sounds like you are looking at  
> the site like an HCI designer, thinking about usability through this  
> lens.
>
> However, I think a problem more fundamental than the particulars of the  
> site is that I don't think the users have been clearly identified. Many  
> OSS projects share this problem, I think. To me, before we think about  
> the website in terms of usability, it is vital to know who the users are  
> that OGo is being designed for.
>
> Here are my assumptions as to what these users would be:
>
> 1) technically inclined people looking to match clients with a  
> technological solution
> 2) developers, users heavily entrenched in similar OSS communities
> 3) non-developer Unix admins
> 4) journalists/PR people
> 5) non-technical users who are looking for something to fulfill a  
> particular task (e.g. share their PIM data with an individual/group)
>
>
> My Comments:
>
> user #1:
>
> I was playing this role not too long ago, I had some difficulty finding  
> what I wanted from the site. I ended up finding some important  
> information in an article about OGo that some publication wrote.
>
> user #2:
>
> Seems well served
>
> user #3:
>
> This also characterizes me. At the time I felt that there was too little  
> non-developer documentation and guides. The end user guide is great, but  
> there is little about customizations or post-install setup-type stuff.  
> There was also no FreeBSD port, although this is being addressed as we  
> speak.
>
> user #4:
>
> I found some important info about OGo by Googling general info about  
> Groupware solutions. It would be nice to have a summary page of what OGo  
> will do, where it's at, how it compares to other products, a general "in  
> a nutshell"/"state of the OSS project" page. This would make OGo much  
> easier to write about.
>
> user #5:
>
> I'm not sure this is an audience that OGo needs to be terribly concerned  
> with, since non-technical users won't have the resources to install OGo  
> themselves. However, these users might want to direct their admins to  
> the OGo website for them to survey. I think fulfilling some of these  
> other needs will probably address the needs of this population.
>
>
> This was just a brainstorm off the top of my head, but I think that  
> perhaps this sort of discussion would be valuable in improving the site  
> (just to add to Mr. Schouten's comments).
>
>
>
> On Oct 2, 2005, at 2:38 PM, B. Schouten wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> yesterday I wrote Helge about the impression I received from the  
>> website and I´d like to share it with you.
>>
>> I just read almost the entire thread on the new website, which was  
>> quite daunting even though it only spanned like 3 days, and I realise  
>> you are (still?) in the midst of a website change, but it doesn´t seem  
>> to affect the design or layout, so I think I can go ahead without being  
>> briefed on the status of that.
>>
>> I was just browsing the opengroupware.org site and the impression I
>> received was the following:
>>
>> - the overall impression was that of a website that is not completely  
>> geared towards attracting and informing users. I think the open source  
>> (non-commercial) world suffers greatly from this, and you can see it at  
>> http://www.jabber.org for a start. That website does a great job  
>> informing would-be developers or technical linux fans, but the  
>> unsuspecting user that has heard about jabber.org as a cool or good  
>> Instant Messenging platform just doesn´t get treated to a good show. It  
>> is not a front-page, so to speak. It is a news website, for people  
>> interesting in its evolution, as that is the first page you get treated  
>> with: a blog. The storyline for guiding new users in is also not really  
>> thought out, but that´s beside the point.
>>
>> Compare with http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution.
>> Their interest is in informing would-be users. They state functionality  
>> foremost, before digressing into technicalities. Unfortunately, they do  
>> not provide enough immediate ´handles´ to proceed further into the page  
>> and get more info. (It isn´t clear to me at least. You can click on the  
>> ´functionality image´, which isn´t an obvious choice for me, since it  
>> doesn´t look like it wants to be clicked, and the top bar just doesn´t  
>> grab the attention. You have to scroll down to get at the ´navigation  
>> frame´ and there is not even a download link there. I guess the  
>> top-navigation-bar is just at fault... but then, Evolutions reputation  
>> may speak for itself in the OSS world, and they don´t need to provide  
>> download links so obviously since every Linux user already has it. They  
>> do confuse things by stating that Evolution is for Gnome (¨only¨ is  
>> almost added)). About providing handles and other relevant  
>> information/links: the jabber site is much better at that. But anyhow,  
>> users don´t want technicalities. Not even technical users want  
>> technicalities. Not until they start using it, and that´s when they  
>> need user manuals, not frontpages.
>>
>> - I don´t really ´get´ from the introduction material, what exactly is  
>> the nature of OGo. Is it a server? Is it a client/server solution? Is  
>> it a web application? That last impression came from the screenshots I  
>> looked at. It also appears to be the case now that I actually read the  
>> detailed ´applications´ statements ;). [[[ as a sidenote: the link to  
>> the ZideLook Pricing at http:// 
>> www.opengroupware.org/screens/zidelook/index.html is broken... ]]]. And  
>> now more becomes clear, after I look at more screenshots. That´s very  
>> good, that screenshot section. Unfortunately, I only now started  
>> looking at the [more info] page beneath the About section. ... My  
>> apologies, Helge, that I didn´t look further before writing you that  
>> email. However, if I initially skipped that [more info] link, others  
>> will too. And then you completely miss the most important part of all  
>> the introductory material! That is to say, I believe writing about the  
>> context in which a product exists is foremost, before even describing  
>> the applications. Telling me that OGo integrates perfectly with both  
>> Outlook and Evolution, among others, AND has a native webinterface that  
>> is just brilliant (if it actually is, haven´t tried yet ;)), is to me  
>> the first thing I want you to do ;). Of course, telling me that it is a  
>> groupware solution that provides [name many applications here] is the  
>> very first thing, but then comes what I just mentioned. That is the way  
>> to inform ppl as fast as possible about the nature of your solution. It  
>> also provides the reader with a good overview of its environment, and  
>> the environment is where the user now exists. What you did with that  
>> very short Mission statement and then immediately describe the History  
>> and the connection to SKYRiX is just not a good solution. That is to  
>> say, if ¨About¨ is the starting point, then you should change your  
>> ¨About¨. Because the History and the SKYRiX connection are not relevant  
>> AT ALL to a new visitor to the website. So you should juggle with what  
>> ¨About¨ means, is it the starting point, or is it something for telling  
>> the user ¨About us¨?
>>
>> So, it seems your cute lil´ project has more to it than I at first  
>> suspected. I am more than pleased :). I want to comment Helge on  
>> keeping the discussions I read (about the new website) so focussed.  
>> I´ll post to the users list (or look at some more docs) to get some  
>> answers to the last part of the email I sent Helge. It was about  
>> getting an ¨Opera M2¨-level usability email solution with central  
>> storage integrated with contacts, that is also able to communicate with  
>> calendar applications and possibly any kind of application that needs  
>> email/adressbook feeds. There is indeed some discussion possible for  
>> that that would belong here.
>>
>> I´ll do that in another post so as to keep the threads seperated.
>>
>> Bye for now,
>>
>> Bart Schouten.
>> --OpenGroupware.org Discussion [email protected]
>> http://mail.opengroupware.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>


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