Grokdoc - A Status Report

Wiki | Usability Study

by zapyon

April 18 2004

Great, PJ.

I think it is good you chose to use a separate domain for Grokdoc (does this refer to a 'doc' (as in medical doctor) or a 'doc' (as in document)? ;-P -- Actually I think the name is not perfect, because it is not the docs that are to be grokked, but Linux, isn't it? This is, why I suggested GrokLinux in my response to presentation of the idea. But Grokdoc isn't bad either, if a little misleading at times. :-D

The study is a great idea. But before anyone starts using their relatives and friends as guineapigs, I think it is important to set up a testing procedure, forms to fill the results in.

The previous experience with computers, operating systems, applications has to be defined for each testee. A windows network administrator? Irregular user of email and web? Total newbie? Equally important may be vital data like age, gender, education level.

And, most important: cut it down to few things! Many people may not like to spend long time in front of the unknown system just to perform a test. If indeed, a testee wants to digress (i.e., see how to burn a CD, write a shell script, whatever), they should be allowed to do so AFTER the study test. If we are to have a study that leads to reasonable results, the frame should be set up well. And before the study tests are started for real, I suggest a few preliminary tests of our test ;-).

Sadly, I am not a WikiWiki guru. But i think Twiki is a well known and popular wiki, as well as phpwiki. And perhaps the underlying software of Wikipedia is an option, too.

Will the wiki be open to editing for everyone, or (as may be better) for "members only"? I know Wikipedia.org is world-editable, but maybe this documentation project is different. And it is really good to have professionals on the team, too.

By the way: I consider it important to start the wiki in a way that offers easy inclusion of language versions. Again, Wikipedia might be a good place to look at for an example how to do it.

Regards

Andreas

11:18 AM EDT

Wiki | Usability Study

by PJ

April 18 2004

very good ideas and things to think through. IF you -- or anyone else -- feel
like coming up with a template form for use by testers, please do so.

12:09 PM EDT