Comments on: A Web 2.0 Documentation Idea Gone Wrong

By: Finding and following conversations - applicable for technical writers? « just write click

Thu, 22 May 2008 22:32:20 +0000

[...] media pursuits that seem to lead us towards documentation as a conversation with customers. As Tom Johnson found in his Web 2.0 experiment, some users think that the help system has boundaries. How can we break down those boundaries [...]

By: Anne Gentle

Anne Gentle — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:07:06 +0000

Tom, what a great experiment! Thanks for writing it up for us all to learn from. We’re not always able to try out these Web 2.0 experiments ourselves so it’s fortunate you are sharing your findings.

My favorite line is “information should also be context-sensitive in the help.” I think Heidi has nailed the issue with her observation of the need for searches through different repositories. It’s not always easy for us to hook it all up, though, but making sure the search works through all supplemental information would go a long ways in helping the user troubleshoot the application.

By: Web 2.0 and documentation don't always play well together by Communications from DMN

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:03:41 +0000

[...] as Tom Johnson points out, not everyone uses or even knows about whatever supplementary documentation you have. Tom stated [...]

By: Heidi Hansen

Heidi Hansen — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:21:21 +0000

This post reminds me of the Office Help experience: you use the Help menu to open a Help search box and type your search, and then it searches different repositories. The default repository is Office Online Help (both Assistance and Training), which returns articles, Web pages, Training, and Help topics. To conduct a narrower search, you can search using Office Offline Help. To search other repositories, you can search the Clip Art and Media repository, the Office Marketplace repository, or the Research repository.
Perhaps your Web 2.0 experiment didn’t *fail* so much as it just exposed that one Search box is needed to query numerous repositories at once, with the added bonus of search results that have icons and mouse-over text that tell you which type of resource it is, and also additional options to narrow the search to one repository as desired.
Sifting through the comments to enhance the Help is an excellent practice. However, have you ever noticed that Troubleshooting topics often duplicate the same information that already exists in procedural topics? It seems that tips and notes in existing topics are often a better way to handle user problems (unless you have a one-stop-shop for Troubleshooting that users really like and turn to); the real key, though, is probably to figure out what they searched for and why the topics that were returned did not answer their question.

By: Core Dump

Core Dump — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:28:44 +0000

[...] Web 2.0 doesn’t work Tom Johnson has an interesting post about a help project that didn’t quite work out the way he hoped. The idea was to integrate SharePoint 2007’s blog/forum feature into online help. [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:34:41 +0000

Lawrence, thanks for your reply and attention. You certainly have your finger on the pulse of the web. How do you manage to stay so blog-aware?

I like the discussion section at the bottom of the wiki that you showed me. Nice. Is that in beta, or can I implement that on my MOSS 2007 site right now?

You asked for ways to improve future versions of SharePoint. Here are what I’d like to see:

1. A “Read More” tab for blog posts.
2. A “Subscribe to Comments” check box for blog posts.
3. Ability to add a blog web part to a team site (rather than creating a separate blog site)
4. Removal of the default Quick Launch layout that organizes content by format rather than topic (this is why so many SharePoint sites have scattered navigation)
5. A location where I can go to ask questions and get answers about SharePoint (maybe you can recommend one)
6. More intuitive setup with the idea of columns (I get it now, but it took me a while)
7. Removal of kerberos authentication for feeds (I just want the feeds to work; it’s crazy that they don’t work in a secure network without some kind of technical kerberos tweak)
8. Better feedreader that allows you to aggregate and sort by post date (does Microsoft have a feedreader? I don’t even know)
9. Integration of TechSmith’s Jing (Microsoft should just buy this product because it would be immensely useful for all the project teams)
10. RSS feed icons on every page (rather than tucked away under the actions menu)
11. Simultaneous editing ability with the wiki (if two people edit at the same time, only one gets to save the edits)

Things I really like about SharePoint: blog, wiki, top tabs, control over the Quick Launch, comprehensive search, one-click publishing, meeting spaces, graphics, interface, usability. MOSS 2007 is light years ahead of its predecessor. Microsoft is really on the right track.

By: Lawrence Liu

Lawrence Liu — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:23:21 +0000

Thanks for describing your real world scenario! We can always use more of these to help us improve future versions of SharePoint. It’s obvious that there would be much greater value to the user (through easier discoverability) if the wiki, discussion, and other supplementary info about a piece of content were seamlessly integrated into the default view of the content. In the wiki case, a good example would be the SharePoint SDK on MSDN: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms550992.aspx. In the discussion case, there would be a “Discuss” link for each wiki page similar to what’s provided by the Community Kit for SharePoint: Enhanced Wiki Edition. Thoughts?

Lawrence Liu
Worldwide Community Lead
Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies