[instaviz-users] Fwd: Documentation???

[Daniel Sachs]

On Dec 15, 2008, at 6:47 PM, Glen Low wrote:
>
> I wanted to make Instaviz a discoverable app. Both my 9 year-old  
> daughter and my wife picked it up within minutes and without too  
> much training. Obviously it needs documentation but I suspect it's  
> primarily for the harder-to-discover functions like delete and  
> export and/or to get past the initial shock of a blank screen --  
> then comes the question of how to insert this help without  
> complicating the interface.
>

I have an idea... there's room for a ? icon on the right side of the  
title bar when you're editing a graph.

If selected, you could put up a page in the form:

How do I?

* Draw a shape
* Delete a shape
* ... other things that people may not know how to do

Why...
* Does my graph layout change when I connect nodes?
* Do my diamonds always come out as squares?
* ... other things that may potentially confuse people

When the buttons are tapped, put up a page that has a little FAQ-type  
entry on how to do it / why Instaviz works in that way.

There's room for a ? icon in the Settings pages too, where you could  
put a little blurb about what the various settings actually mean.

I think that having a ? icon that leads to a page of frequently asked  
questions is both unobtrusive and absolutely discoverable.

dan

-- 
| Daniel Grobe Sachs      <dgsachs at nekito.net> |
| The time is gone, the song is over, thought  |
|        I'd something more to say...          |