Admin Help: 23 September 2013 meeting recap

User testing reflections

I think we’ve established that the current location of the help tab is not easily discoverable. Moving it to the admin bar didn’t have particularly positive results either. Changing the color dramatically enough that it no longer matched the rest of the admin made it more visible (but I don’t think that’s the end solution). So, I think we can agree that we have identified that the location of the current help tab is an issue — people aren’t finding it naturally and are resorting to other means of support when they need it.

Mockups, plz

Now we need to start coming up with solutions to the problem. Ways to make the admin help more discoverable. Last round of testing we threw two ideas into the mix with different results. As suggested by @trishasalas we’re going to try a new tool (Verify) to test out these mockups and get feedback from humans to help guide our decisions for what would work best.

@trishasalas will work on getting the Verify stuff set up.

Everyone else, now is your chance to either throw out an idea or a mockup or both. Anything that doesn’t have a mockup won’t be considered, but if you want to take someone else’s idea and mock that up (bc not everyone is a designer), feel free.

Some previously suggested ideas include:

Using a GetSatisfaction/Basecamp-style button on the side, e.g. : https://i.imgur.com/8KvJpYz.png
- I’d also like to see what comes up after this is clicked…
Modify the existing help tab to make it bigger, different color (but still matching the color scheme of MP6), etc
Add help to the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme.
- Where to put it? Top? Bottom? Middle? Submenus?
Help links scattered throughout (with an icon/image/text) which link directly to the help tab (I believe this was the idea in 21273 — which would make it similar to what Codestyling Localization does — but the last patch is several versions out of date and I didn’t have time to fiddle with it to get it to work — would still like to see this mocked up and compared to other options)

There are obviously more, but these are a few ideas that have come up a couple times. And within these, there are different ways each thing could be approached. Go nuts. We’ll talk about the mockups at the next meeting.

Also, as you’re mocking stuff up, don’t forget about this screenshot archive I (with some contributions from @trishasalas) set up of how different platforms/systems handle help for ideas and/or reference: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3-2b7pMjiwXeEhpbzBNelFlUGc&usp=sharing

Please post your mockups in the comments for this post for discussion.

Ideas, plz

If you have any brilliant ideas that haven’t been covered, please add them as comments to this post. Then we can discuss each one and I can add them to the list.

See you all next week! 🙂

#3-8, #admin-help

Drew Jaynes 8:41 pm on September 23, 2013

I’ve been vicariously following the progress of this group, so forgive me if this idea is already out there.

Some time ago when we were first talking about moving the help tabs to the Toolbar, maybe circa 3.5, #21326, there was another ticket that talked about creating contextual “jump links” that would open a help tab #21273

It might be worth considering some kind of contextual help in-page, such as a help link for popular form elements. I’m talking about tooltip-style contextual help with links that would trigger a panel-open or in-place help.

In other words, bringing the help to where it’s needed instead of _only_ consolidating it to a panel wherever on the page that ends up being.
- toscho 8:49 pm on September 23, 2013
  
  Exactly my thoughts. Some plugins do that already, Codestyling Localization for example.
- Chris Reynolds 9:53 pm on September 23, 2013
  
  Thanks Drew. I’ll take a look at those.
wycks 9:29 pm on September 23, 2013

+ contextual help , it has been shown that embedded assistance is much better than a “help” button and list of help items. A help button removes the user from the current action (doing something) and generally speaking people don’t ask for help even when they need it:) In other words the placement and button are not the issue, the usability is. Also if help is should always be optional. Just my 2¢
Eric Andrew Lewis 11:23 pm on September 23, 2013

Can we have an example user test list of tasks to direct our mock-ups? I think this will be most helpful in comparing the next round of mock-ups.
- Chris Reynolds 11:35 pm on September 23, 2013
  
  I posted what we used for the user testing here: https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2013/09/23/admin-help-user-testing-scenarios/
Matt van Andel 5:36 pm on September 24, 2013

I agree with the others talking about contextual help.

The problem with having a help tab (or help page) of any kind is that people have become conditioned to ignore them, even when they are conspicuous. There numerous mental barriers that prevent people from seeing it, or clicking on it even if they do see it:

1) Users are conditioned to expect that help SECTIONS are not useful. You can thank the useless Help sections of countless pieces of software for this expectation (including many popular operating systems).

2) A separate tab means that all the help is grouped together. Even if the user notices it, they know that they will then have to stop what they are doing and manually wade through lots of irrelevant content to find the one piece of information they are looking for. Having help documentation triggered contextually inline alleviates this.

3) Due to years of experience with #1 and #2, users brains are conditioned to filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. out buttons/menu items that say “Help”. It’s similar to the recent phenomenon where users were mentally not registering right-hand sidebars because the expectation was that right-hand sidebars were only used for ads.

Human brains are very good at training themselves to filter out things they expect to be difficult or un-useful. In this case, even if we made the Help button large and orange and conspicuous, people would ignore it. They might see it more readily, but few would “consciously register” it, and even fewer would be inclined to interact with it.

I think we need to dramatically re-evaluate how help is integrated with WordPress, and having a “help section” of any type (even one contextual to the current screen) is going to have very little success as a result. The barrier is a pavlovian and psychological one. Help needs to be contextual, intuitive, and possibly even inline and in-your-face unless/until the user decides to turn it off.
- Chris Reynolds 5:50 pm on September 24, 2013
  
  I agree with everything you said. My only question would be, are little ? icons next to everything the right way to go? It seems like those would be just as easy to blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. out as anything else. And if those aren’t the best solution, what then?
  
  I’m not convinced yet that adding ? icons next to items that have help are the best way to go. Personally, I’d prefer a first-time walkthrough like http://github.hubspot.com/vex/docs/welcome/ or http://bootstraptour.com/ or http://ryanfunduk.com/jquery-tourbus/ or any of the other, similar tour scripts, but when that’s come up in the IRC chat in the past, the reaction has been mixed.
  
  I agree that one of the barriers is pavlovian, which was why I proposed a month ago to change “Help” to “More information” because when people see “help” they automatically tune out, but what they are actually looking for is more information about whatever task they are trying to do. But if people aren’t even seeing the tabs, then something needs to be done about that first.
  - J.D. Grimes 6:36 pm on September 24, 2013
    
    I think adding little ? icons everywhere could be annoying, but not so bad as long as it could be turned off — completely and/or per screen. And it would be even better if some/many of them would be hidden until you hover over/click/focus something.
    
    I think it would be useful to have the ? icons organized into different groups that could be turned on/off separately from one another — if that’s the way we go. Then if a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party adds some new elements to a screen but the default help groups for that screen have been turned off, the plugin’s help would still be accessible (though the user could turn it off or possibly set the default to off so it wouldn’t show by default).
    
    My 2¢
@ubernaut 1:36 am on October 7, 2013

another thing that could make them less annoying and more noticeable at the same time is to make them hover effects. here is the basic i idea for this contextual help icons at least i had envisioned them way back when it was first mentioned:

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/attachment/ticket/21273/Screen%20Shot%202013-10-06%20at%206.09.48%20PM%20copy%20copy.png

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Weekly meetings

Admin Help: 23 September 2013 meeting recap

User testing reflections

Mockups, plz

Ideas, plz

Want to get involved?

Weekly meetings

User testing reflections

Mockups, plz

Ideas, plz

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