Re: A thought on Windows Experience

[James Harkins]

On Monday, December 9, 2013 12:02:31 PM HKT, James Harkins wrote:
> On Dec 9, 2013 11:52 AM, "Mark Stephen Mrotek" <address@hidden> 
wrote:
> > Mr. Harkins,
> >
> > Two or three hops are not too much for anyone that reads and follows
> directions.
>
> Then you have more faith than I in general usage patterns on the 
internet.
> (As in, you still think people read and follow directions online.)

Hm, actually, I take that back.

The more relevant point is that it takes time to build up a mental map of 
information on a website or in a reference book. When you've already looked 
around lilypond.org for some time (once in a while over a period of a 
couple of years, say), it seems quite obvious to reach the "easier editing" 
page by way of two other clicks. If you're coming to the site for the first 
time, even in just those two clicks, there are plenty of places to go 
astray.

 - Download page (assuming someone actually wants to try it, this is
   where she will go next)
   - The eye goes immediately to the logos for operating
     systems. That's normal -- usually, when you're downloading
     software, you're focused on finding the file for your OS.
   - "Before downloading LilyPond, please read about our Text input."
     Clear enough to follow -- but, there's an assumption here that
     the reader will have an inkling of how crucial this page
     is. Without that intuition, I think it's fairly easy to skip
     this link.

 - Text input page
   - "Easier editing" is one of some 10 links in the navigation
     bars. Unlikely to draw attention here.
   - "Text input"'s focus is on the input format. It doesn't give a
     potential user a clear picture of the system architecture, in
     which the editor is one program and the compiler is another (not
     even in the "Easier editing environments" section of text). Even
     a careful reader couldn't be blamed for coming away from this
     without a clear understanding of how important it is to have a
     good editor for LP code.

My flippant response makes it sound like any reasonably intelligent person 
would find the right information fairly quickly, casting the problem in 
terms of user carelessness. That was a misstatement. My point is that 
reasonably intelligent, reasonably careful readers can visit lilypond.org 
and get from it no strong feeling for the importance of downloading a 
dedicated editor *in addition to* LilyPond itself.

I answer a lot of questions on the SuperCollider mailing list -- a LOT of 
questions. Often the answers involve "See ***** in the documentation." At 
some points, I would get frustrated with this... "Why can't people find 
this information? Aren't they reading the help pages?" Then I realized, 
it's not that it all -- it's just that there are so many help pages that 
nobody can get intimately familiar with them quickly. I have something like 
a 10 year head start over new SC users in that regard. That's a valuable 
resource on my part, but not a failing on their part.

Anyway, back to the thread topic: If Windows users get scared off by the 
fact that double-clicking LilyPond.exe does not present a working 
environment, and if they expect that result from double-clicking 
LilyPond.exe, then they aren't getting sufficient information about the 
structure of the working environment from lilypond.org. A minor redesign of 
the Download page would help a lot with that.

Carl's two-column approach is pretty much what I had in mind. Although, he 
suggests this would be only a slight improvement. I think it could be more 
than that. Suppose we introduce the downloads with a couple of paragraphs 
across the top:

~~
IMPORTANT: A complete working environment for LilyPond consists of two 
components: LilyPond itself, and a music editor. If you have installed only 
one of these, then you're not experiencing LilyPond's full power.

NEW USERS: After installing LilyPond for your operating system, review the 
editors in the right-hand column and install one of them. Use the editor as 
your primary LilyPond interface.
~~

hjh