In this blog post, Gordon McLean discusses the need to move users from the state of being super novices to being experts. While Gordon starts his discussion with a presentation he attended given by a usability professional, he ponders how to apply the insights that he gleaned from the presentation to technical communications:
It’s fairly easy to get into the mindset of the beginner; presume the reader knows nothing and assume a level of learning in which to frame the information. Expert level information is a little trickier but could be stated as specialist, or niche, information.
But what of the super-novice? If we want people to get the most from our applications (and we do, don’t we?) how do we enable the super-novices and help them become experts?
As Gordon states, it’s difficult to help users make that leap. To do so, you may need to “start looking around for some new models of learning.” Social networking, forums, and wikis are part of the solution.
I think another part of the solution, and the first step that needs to be taken, is to create passionate users. How? By creating a product that makes them passionate. That’s no easy feat. No software or Web application or device is perfect. But if you can get users passionate about your product — in the way that, say, companies like Apple and 37 Signals have — then you’ve won a major battle.
What makes users want to learn more about a product and move from novice to expert? The software, devices, and Web apps that I’m passionate about, they have some or all of the following in common:
- They’re simple. They pack the features that I need and I can quickly get up to speed and working or playing with them.
- Their creators take usability seriously. The products are easy to use and easy to customize.
- They’re well designed. They’re not flashy, graphics heavy, or cluttered. The interfaces are attractive, and they load quickly.
- The documentation helps me to quickly gain a foothold. The documenation won’t take me to expert, but it will give me what I need to know to start thinking about the potential of the product and how I’ll be able to use it. If the documentation is well done, it has me asking a lot of what if? questions.
Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.
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3 Responses
Gordon
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:01 am
1Another part of creating passionate users (aside from checking out Kathy’s website of the same name) is to build a community. This helps not only foster innovation but drives certain types of users (the type that always become experts) towards mastery, which leads to increased sharing of knowledge, which leads to further discussions, which leads to… and on and on.
The community also offers a place to answer those “what if?” questions, opening them to the other users of the product.
Scott
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:58 am
2A community of some kind definitely helps. Aaron and I will be discussing that in an upcoming podcast.
Ben
April 29th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
3I noticed that only #4 in your list applies to technical writers specifically. Often, we don’t have much say regarding 1, 2, or 3 in the things that make you passionate. Gordon’s point about building a community is a good one; we can take some responsibility for that. But I want to stay away from writing documentation that sounds like I’m trying to get the user to like using the product. That’s the marketing department’s job. I saw a forum post just today from someone who was upset that a certain company provided tutorials on the company site that seemed more like marketing pitches than actual getting started documentation.
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