Hot answers tagged tutorial
9
I would call it an Inline Help Box which can take many forms and shapes. Take a look at UI Patterns: Inline Help Box, where they explain the following:
Use to gently introduce functionality to the new and untrained user.
...which is exactly what "How to format" in your screenshot is meant to do.
7
As others said, you should look into generating HTML files that you ship with your product for help. One of our products (used in an environment without internet access) has been doing this for years and many users prefer it to the PDFs we also ship because the navigation is easier, the content lays itself out to fit the browser window, and the chunk size ...
6
People don't read. The best help is no help. Of course to do that, you need to put a ton of time and work into the UX.
So, assuming you do need help, I'd suggest the best would be context sensitive help that can link to your web site with the latest up-to-date help information. You'd publish help as HTML, saving you from proprietary CHM production ...
5
I think the term "tour" is more typical than "walk-through", as in "Take a tour of our features." Using the phrase "Get Started" is very recognizable as well.
The phrase or term that you choose depends on what functionality the user will be walked through:
If they will be completing something during the guided tour, then you should use "wizard" as ...
4
It isn't redundant. It's a function people already use on a regular basis. Don't over-think it. People are used to slide to the right, and people are used to see bullets on how far they have progressed. If you truly think it's redundant, than I would ditch the carousel, since I believe it's better suited for navigating to different destinations in your app ...
3
If I'm sitting down to play a game, one thing I don't want to do is read instructions. Console games don't even come with printed manuals anymore, and users are going to expect a much bigger time investment than with a web game probably.
What I do want to do is: play the game. I would recommend against a video for new users - you're asking them to make a ...
3
Depending on the type and complexity of the game, you might be better served observing someone use your game for the first time and taking note of what confuses and frustrates them. Then, concentrate on making those interface elements or tasks more obvious through succinct labeling, hover tips, visual contrast, and movement. Then, test again.
Making a ...
3
There isn't One True Term but I would say "walk-through" is more apt for what you are describing.
A wizard will guide a user through a series of actions to achieve a desired outcome. It is active.
A walk-through will be a quick overview of the system, a feature, etc. It is passive.
A tutorial is an overarching term for a guide intending to teach the user. ...
3
Including a "new user experience" option is fairly common for many many applications. I have often recommended showing a message like you described upon first use, and even having the message linger for a few weeks. If you include an option "do not show this message again" at the bottom of the notification, you can prevent the message from becoming ...
3
PDF is a bad option:
it's page oriented, which sucks for on-screen reading. PDF makes you choose between unreadably small and lots of scrolling.
Search is terribly slow to handle in comparison to anything else
Some people react strongly negative to some products associated with PDF. Imagine an Aggrobat hater in acompany with a very strict IT policy
PDF is ...
2
For automatic generation of technical documentation you can use XML publishing formats such as Docbook or DITA. In particular, DITA is capable of generating PDF, CHM, RTF, and HTML.
I have used the Serna Free editor which provides good visual editing support (WYSIWYG) for DITA in order to reduce the XML specifics.
However, technical documentation is not ...
2
A key question you have to answer is whether you want to offer separated help or a context-sensitive help mechanism. One, t'other or both will probably affect your choice of tool.
Regardless of what you think of them, Adobe generally have pretty good help mechanisms within their application. From what I can see, they're bespoke alternatives to CHM, but seem ...
2
There's the book Mobile Design Pattern Gallery with a section dedicated to the first time user experience, which the author Theresa Neil calls "invitations". She identifies 6 common patterns: dialog, tip, tour, demo, transparency, embedded, persistent, and discoverable. They are all summarized in an article on UX Booth.
If your app is rather complicated, ...
1
Inline hints about something new are nice. The good ones don't get in the way, but provide an entry into an explanation of what has changed.
The important thing is, no matter how you want to present your information, I need to be in control of when and where I dig into it. Your changes may not affect what I'm trying to do right now, I might be in a hurry, ...
1
Since you have mentioned partial updates are regular, you could have info nudges on those pages where the interface has changed. This could be something like a little curtain with a message informing that things have changed on this page and the user could be given an option to lean more.
Once you are in the learn more, you could have a modal popup ...
1
How about a good old plain and simple x/5 or x of 5 after the heading? I.e. referencing your screenshot, it could say ...ategories 2/5 ______ Featured 3/5 ______ Top ..., and so on.
This way, you communicate the progress, the overall page count, nor do you have to sacrifice the screenspace a clickable-sized controll would require to be usable. However, the ...
1
As it was said, step back and redesign the UI.
First thing that comes to my mind is to make tabbed area at the bottom of the screen (the upper part of the screen should be dedicated to the large image of the icon only) where each tab is related to certain layer and contains corresponding controls for manipulation. Or you can go further with this idea and to ...
1
On the sketching front I would particularly recommend:
Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton
Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam
I also find myself largely agreeing with http://konigi.com/book/sketch-book
However the absolute best way of improving is just that tedious process of practice ;-)
A couple of years back I filled a couple of notebooks with a ...
1
I'm going to bet that you've already found a ton of good resources to read about that explain how to do design and follow design processes. I think your best bet of improving your actual design skills, though, is by actually doing design work.
It might be worthwhile for you to just pick up some "throwaway" or "do it just because" design work, and get real ...
1
Some resources I like:
Jakob Nielsen http://useit.com
Donal Norman http://jnd.org
Bruce Tognazzini http://asktog.com
Designer Forum http://designerstalk.com
http://alistapart.com
http://smashingmagazine.com
There's a lot more out there, I'm sure others will recommend their favorite resources.
1
I would spend a little time trying to make the demo data look realistic.
I have taken shortcuts with examples before, thinking that they will get the gist of what I'm talking about. Each time there have been people who can't get past the data or example not being quite right.
This tends to interfere with their learning, and in the end takes up more time ...
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