Help page

Those tabs kinda bug me. That's just a personal pet peeve though, not saying we shouldn't do it.

I'd be inclined to have a link at the top of the toolbar which says "Help". Perhaps where "Give us feedback" currently sits. It could be a dropdown which might have two options like "See how Loomio works" and "Give us feedback"

I've been thinking we want to provide at least three kinds of meta information: 'help', 'send feedback', and 'new features'. I wonder if there is a way to incorporate all three into one mechanism?

How about a dropdown where it currently says "send us feedback" which says "support" or something, and has options for help, contact us, and news or something?

That's what I've been thinking @alannakrause but I can't think of what the correct label is for such a dropdown. I think the primary thing is that it is super easy to find help.

@richarddbartlett Do you have a hunch if anyone ever clicks on 'Give us feedback'?

Hunch is yes, as we get a lot of feedback

I think on most any website, if I wanted to contact them, get help, or find out more about app development, I would look for something that said "Help" or "Support"

I think we could go an icon without cluttering that space up top right:

incidentally, those icons are included in the new version of Bootstrap @jessedoud just installed :P
http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/base-css.html#icons

@johnirving agree with the idea of a logo!

I reckon the default bootstrap icons are a bit too small and ugly though. I think we should make our own larger, prettier, inverted version of the info icon.

agree ... was a quick start point though. I'ma gonna propose it

@matthewbartlett I had to go looking for it... and then had to stare at it for a minute to figure out what it meant. I would propose changing that ? and having another visual feature which (presumably) indicates one has yet to vote ?

has a mockup:

@johnirving yeah I agree. I was also trying to think of a replacement for the yet-to-vote icon today, but didn't come up with much. Yours feels like a step in the right direction — though likely to be just as mysterious in when seen by itself.

The existing question mark indicating 'yet to vote' is in my opinion one of the most critical UI failures of the app. 'Yet to vote' should be the most prominent notification on your dashboard. The question mark is so passive, muted, and unclear. It should say "ACTION REQUIRED" not "huh?"

As for your proposed new question mark John, if I saw a "?" button, I would expect help information, but I wouldn't expect to find feedback or feature updates.

I'm open to the idea that trying to cram all three features into one UI element is overkill.

@richarddbartlett I am hearing you. Although in progressive movements calling something a failure without a suggesting an alternative is counter productive.

The question mark is being used so probably not a candidate for John's proposal until we remove it from the discussion previews. Even with the new dashboard 2.0, we will still require two symbols to represent each job respectively. As they are interdependent on each others existence lets mock up some suggestions along side each other and solve both problems at once.

Here are some suggestions to kick this into motion:
https://loomio.mybalsamiq.com/projects/yettovoteandhelpicons/grid

@aaronthornton i love the empty / colourless graph, it show there has been action but you haven't read or voted so you should look closer for detail.
it also potentially cuts the need for an additional warning! column.
I'm also a huge fan of using colour t(or lack of) to implicitly convey info

I was imaging text along with the icon. Like Trello.

Here is a mock up for the removal of the question mark as the place holder for 'position not stated' on the groups and home page.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-2_0ngxarwAak1kakJ2ZkRvTTQ/edit?usp=sharing

I like this more ... this says Attention! a lot more clearly
it does tend toward an alarm a little more though.

I think if it was a symbol on or near the voting graph it would maybe be quicker to 'read' quickly

would the ! symbol be used to indicated attention needed for any other reason?

In terms of providing an accessible place for helper info, I really like the left-hand side tab (like the one Rich linked to in the context panel). I reckon those persistent tabs are super eye-catching and don't get in the way. The only problem with a tab labelled 'Help' is that people might be disappointed to find just a tutorial video rather than an FAQ - but I actually think we should probably start thinking about putting something together that serves the purpose of a basic FAQ.

While I've been working on internationalising the app, I've really felt the need for a mechanism to provide language-specific help within the app.

I've always imagined that the 'Give us feedback' email link would eventually be replaced by a link to a Feedback subgroup within the Loomio Community. I'd also really like a 'Help' link in the toolbar that points to a Help subgroup.

The benefit of using a group rather than an email is that it is more scalable: it would hopefully turn into a self-supporting community.

It would also be easy to internationalise: the Spanish Help link would point to the Spanish Help subgroup.

The problem is, if we just had a link straight to the subgroup, it would be quite confusing. As a user who doesn't know how to use Loomio, it would be frustrating to be forced to use Loomio to ask for help about it.

So the question is:

• Is it a good idea to have a self-supporting user community?
• If so, how do we structure the gateway to this community to make it really usable?

@richarddbartlett what about just a well-written group description panel for the feedback subgroup?

@matthewbartlett how does the user get access to the group?

I like this idea a huge amount @richarddbartlett ! I feel like it's definitely worth putting some thought into whether there are any easy wins in making a group super super accessible. @robertguthrie tends to have good ideas about this stuff - anything pop into your mind Roberto?

The more I think about this the harder it gets.

How does the user get access to the group, post a question, and get notified of a response, without getting flooded with irrelevant notifications?

Uhmm.. I think the persistant feedback button thing is good for actually collecting feedback (you can expect a modal to popup when you click). I think people put those tabs there (in the side of the page) because feedback modules are usually completely 3rd party code, and so plonking the button in an odd but obvious place is unlikely to break most existing designs. This makes feedback really easy to implement with a couple of lines of javascript and lets you get on with building your app.

Id suggest we remove the 'Give us feedback' from the top nav, and replace it with 'Help'. Which is a normal link to a helpful index of info - or a drop down with help pages and helpful loomio groups.

As for a feedback system to replace our mailto: link.. I agree that dogfooding the feedback seems like a good idea.. but it could also be a major problem if the feedback is about something you need to do while giving feedback. There is a nice redundancy in using a completely 3rd party feedback system - if our system is broken or the user is stuck, the feedback system should stil work for them.

So it comes down to use cases.
Most of the time we will want to build community and loomio usage for people talking about loomio - we want to point them towards the relevant loomio community groups. I think help/feedback groups listed from the help dropdown would do fine.

The other use case is for someone trapped in the system and pointing them to a group won't help them. in that case they need either 3rd party web feedback or email.

Personally I have a slight dislike of feedback being a tab dangling off the side of the screen. It's a bit Ugo.

Yeah I think using a Loomio group to provide Loomio help is a challenge we're not prepared for yet.

I made this mockup as a suggested next step. I've just copied the How it works page for most of the content and the layout.

hey @richarddbartlett - checkout squaresend.com it makes mailto's work even when email client is not configured in the browser... which is the reason why feedback addons exist in the first place.

ok.. it does not quite do that.. but it looks good

p.s. i like the mockup

I think 'Feedback' is clear to users. I've just been using GrooveShark for the first time in the last few days, and I've already used their unobtrusive but easy-to-see Feedback button a number of times. As a stop-gap, I suggest a 'Feedback' drop-down which gives two options:
* by email
* main Loomio group

It's good to have email remain an option for people who just want to flick off a quick bug report/ suggestion, but it's also good to have something in the UI explicitly inviting people to participate in the development group.

@richarddbartlett I like what you've done with the mock-up, but I think you were right when you said that Help and Feedback do not belong in one UI element. There are two opposite direction flows involved:
* Feedback: user > developers/ engineers
* Help: developers/ engineers > user

Feedback needs to be quick and easy, which is why I like a drop-down, while I agree that Help needs its own page, and your mockup is a good start. I would just make the first thing at the top an instruction like 'this help page not answer your question? use the feedback button to send us an email or contribute to development discussions'.

@jessedoud while you're putting this page together, it would be good to think about how the design might develop as the content grows. I.e. pretty soon there will be a new section providing help specifically for new group admins (see here).

The first thing that comes to mind for me is to include a static navigation menu that stays visible as you scroll down the page:

- Get in touch

- Join the community

- Loomio basics
- - Video tutorial
- - Getting started
- - Have a discussion
- - Make a decision

- Cultivating a thriving Loomio group
- - Setting the context
- - Introducing Loomio to your group
- - Facilitation basics

Yep, @richarddbartlett that's a good idea. We should be able to slot a fixed subnav in here pretty easily when the time comes.