3 ms·

IMHO it is all part of the documentation to enable people to up ramp. What is missing from most documentation is simple Use Case. You need a video / tutorial

by sloaken 11mo ago

IMHO it is all part of the documentation to enable people to up ramp. What is missing from most documentation is simple Use Case. You need a video / tutorial that is JUST 'Wheres the starting point' Then one addressing what you expect most people to do. Each tutorial should be no more than 5 minutes, ideally 1 minute. (hmm sounds like breaking up your code into manageable parts) Making it easy to find the tutorials is important. If one tutorial needs another, then point to it. Do not just say "before you start make sure you understand quantum theory" You know this is like the 'one man band' where the person is playing a dozen instruments. "I do not understand, you know how to read music, why don't you strap this on and perform?" Er I don't know how to play the xylophone. Ok let me teach you each instrument.... then we can put it together. Here is the symbol, here is the harmonica, we will just integrate these 2. Hope this helps.

CharlieDigital 11mo ago
> What is missing from most documentation is simple Use Case. There's a lesson to be learned from Microsoft's success with SharePoint in the 2007-2013 time frame where they absolutely sold a ton of deals in various verticals for what is otherwise a super generic productivity platform comprised of docs, calendars, task lists, etc. Microsoft's strategy was simple: have vertical specific SMEs, sales teams, and solution delivery teams that build solutions that addressed specific use cases for those industries. Life sciences, legal, manufacturing, you name it: Microsoft had a vertical specific team that understood the use cases in those verticals. Their sales teams configured vertical specific demos. They shipped vertical specific templates and configurations for those use cases. I ended up in life sciences (pharmas, biotechs) by happenstance and we helped customers get SharePoint configured for use cases like operating clinical trials on SharePoint. The underlying platform is incredibly generic, but having your sales people speak the domain space and pre-configured solutions (or solution delivery partners) made it more palatable. I think most companies that are building these kind of tools need an "on-ramp" that is industry or use-case specific designed with SMEs or customer observations for those use cases.
- brennanpeterson 11mo ago
  I wonder if that is why it worked as opposed to why it sold. At least, as one of the users in that time it seems to me that the itch was the document repository with some features, and the rest was fluff for purchasing to sign off on. All the calendar, task, website stuff ended up dying away, because what we really needed was a good document management system, with optionally some simple signoff loops and notifications. That was great. Yes, it was just unix like tools with a window. That is the craigslist of os improvements. It really was the use case, but the simple one. I saw plenty of power users try to do complex and ultimately fragile uses that died away. In the case of this user, I love the idea of turning an email to an action, but I also need to add that to my action board and assign it, and check people time, at which point the simple action only makes sense for individuals, not teams or orgs. and I need to add a couple missing actions, and summarize. So suddenly the all in one is a marginally useful tool that is also a straightjacket. And then I go back to outlook and jira and excel and trelli or whatever.
  - CharlieDigital 11mo ago
    > All the calendar, task, website stuff ended up dying away, because what we really needed was a... That's part of my point: the sales strategy was brilliant. Whether or not SharePoint's built in calendar or Project Server integration made sense is almost secondary; they understood how to sell it.
mannykannot 11mo ago
I completely agree, and I will add one more thing: when you change how the product looks or works, make sure that users - especially inexperienced users - can easily find the documentation and tutorials that correctly describes the version of the product that they are attempting to use. I would guess that out of ten people who run into a situation where something does not work as described, maybe only one or two will push through the frustration and go on to become power users.

by sloaken 11mo ago

CharlieDigital 11mo ago

> What is missing from most documentation is simple Use Case. There's a lesson to be learned from Microsoft's success with SharePoint in the 2007-2013 time frame where they absolutely sold a ton of deals in various verticals for what is otherwise a super generic productivity platform comprised of docs, calendars, task lists, etc. Microsoft's strategy was simple: have vertical specific SMEs, sales teams, and solution delivery teams that build solutions that addressed specific use cases for those industries. Life sciences, legal, manufacturing, you name it: Microsoft had a vertical specific team that understood the use cases in those verticals. Their sales teams configured vertical specific demos. They shipped vertical specific templates and configurations for those use cases. I ended up in life sciences (pharmas, biotechs) by happenstance and we helped customers get SharePoint configured for use cases like operating clinical trials on SharePoint. The underlying platform is incredibly generic, but having your sales people speak the domain space and pre-configured solutions (or solution delivery partners) made it more palatable. I think most companies that are building these kind of tools need an "on-ramp" that is industry or use-case specific designed with SMEs or customer observations for those use cases.

brennanpeterson 11mo ago
I wonder if that is why it worked as opposed to why it sold. At least, as one of the users in that time it seems to me that the itch was the document repository with some features, and the rest was fluff for purchasing to sign off on. All the calendar, task, website stuff ended up dying away, because what we really needed was a good document management system, with optionally some simple signoff loops and notifications. That was great. Yes, it was just unix like tools with a window. That is the craigslist of os improvements. It really was the use case, but the simple one. I saw plenty of power users try to do complex and ultimately fragile uses that died away. In the case of this user, I love the idea of turning an email to an action, but I also need to add that to my action board and assign it, and check people time, at which point the simple action only makes sense for individuals, not teams or orgs. and I need to add a couple missing actions, and summarize. So suddenly the all in one is a marginally useful tool that is also a straightjacket. And then I go back to outlook and jira and excel and trelli or whatever.
- CharlieDigital 11mo ago
  > All the calendar, task, website stuff ended up dying away, because what we really needed was a... That's part of my point: the sales strategy was brilliant. Whether or not SharePoint's built in calendar or Project Server integration made sense is almost secondary; they understood how to sell it.

mannykannot 11mo ago

I completely agree, and I will add one more thing: when you change how the product looks or works, make sure that users - especially inexperienced users - can easily find the documentation and tutorials that correctly describes the version of the product that they are attempting to use. I would guess that out of ten people who run into a situation where something does not work as described, maybe only one or two will push through the frustration and go on to become power users.