Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-online-help
Created: 2005-10-31 by MrPantless
Contributors: MrPantless, Nmonk
Packages affected:
Summary
The installed desktop and the online help would both be improved by linking them together more tightly.
Rationale
People need help, and if the installed help does not completely fill their needs, smoothly transitioning to the online help resources makes the process of getting more help completely painless, even for new users unfamiliar with all the help resources.
Linking the online and installed help would make sure that the information is kept up to date in both places when it changes. It would also reduce duplication of effort and provide more polished and translated information for online users.
The manpower thus freed can in turn apply to improving the now singular help system, and making sure it's structure is helpful, accessable, and links to all other resources.
Use cases
- Jenny tries to install her scanner and follows the guide that is shipped. She finds that does not work. She knows about the wiki and finds there is a guide for her scanner there. She wants to be able to go from the shipped help to that guide.
- Jim is having problems with his wireless card. He is a new computer user and doesn't know where else to look when the shipped help cannot answer his question. He gets stuck and decides to go back to Windows.
- Sally goes to the help menu on Firefox and goes to "Get Help online". She doesn't see any docs on that page that can help her.
Scope
There are several steps here:
- Linking each installed documentation page to more resources online
- Streamlining and standardizing the online resources structure to match
- Ensuring the online resources meet the high quality required for installation
- Redesigning the installed resources to automatically build from the new quality online info
- Ensuring smooth transition from the online help to other resources: launchpad, chat, external
Design
People should not have to decide between two or more places to look for help when they have no way of knowing which of them, if any, will contain the answer they want. Therefore each help resource should provide access to the resource that's next most likely to be useful:
the bottom of each Yelp page should link to a text search for that topic on help.ubuntu.com
- the bottom of each help.ubuntu.com page should link to a page describing the forums and IRC channels.
The exception to this is when people much prefer a different mode of interaction; for example they don't like reading off a computer screen and want to talk to someone on the phone instead.
Implementation
- Improving the Launchpad-integration work
- Make certain that the Ubuntu-doc team in LP has the ability to edit any of the LP landing pages.
- Collect relevant links for each LP page
- Linking the existing docs to the wiki
- Collect a list of good wiki pages for linking
- Figure out where that above list gets linked in the shipped docs
Code
Data preservation and migration
Outstanding issues
- When you use Apple's Help Viewer while online, Help Viewer checks apple.com for updated docs. It would be nice if yelp could do this one day.