[Libreoffice] EasyHack: Improved bug filing form / flow

[Christoph Noack]

Hi Samuel,

great to hear that you continue this project ...

Am Montag, den 21.03.2011, 21:53 +0000 schrieb Samuel Atkins:
> Hello all,
> 
> I'd like to pick-up this project, as it looks like something I could 
> accomplish!

[...]

> So this is largely an introduction. So, hello! And of course, if anyone 
> has any input, feel free.

Just a few questions at the beginning:
      * Is that bug filing form intended to help less experienced users?
        (Within this mail, I'll assume that).
      * Is the formatting of the page final, or will it be embedded in
        another web page?

At the moment, there are some minor issues and some things that look a
bit illogical to me (but this may only be me). So please bear with me
when I simply state some of these issues:
      * When choosing the options, users might miss the information
        whether they are finished or not. So my proposal would be to
        state a text / placeholder like "Further information required."
        and add visual clues (spacing, subtle headings, or ...) between
        the different questions.
      * The large heading "Before you file ..." seems to be a heading
        for the whole page - I'm sure it is not. The whole page is about
        the bug report (= the heading) and some hints to consider before
        filing any issue (proposal: a separate box at the top). There,
        please include the "If you are having more than one problem ..."
      * The whole text seems a bit too technical (assumption: less
        technical users). There is "#libreoffice IRC", "crash", ODF (on
        the wiki pages), "bug", ... 
      * The combination of some entries seems a bit strange, e.g.:
              * "There is a problem with the website" + "Crashes the
                program"
              * "LibreOffice crashes" + "Does it crash ... load or
                save ... document? YES" + "Do you need to load a
                document to execute those steps NO".
      * Some helpful hints might be less helpful for users, e.g.:
              * "If possible, please search the bug reports before ..."
                --> If the users are less experienced, how and where to
                do that? If I remember correctly, Gnome let the user
                enter some terms and then searches within such kind of
                bug filing form.
              * "Are you sure ... fonts installed. Bear in mind ... may
                list fonts that are not installed". --> How should the
                user identify what kind of fonts are installed (still, I
                assume less experienced users).
              * "document ... then attach it" --> where? (Maybe it's not
                yet implemented, but I didn't see the nice placeholders
                you used elsewhere).
      * Formatting stuff:
              * The "Description" fields are very small - maybe the
                problems are small as well, but I think it is helpful to
                increase the field size a bit. (On my computer, the
                current size is approx 4x2 cm)
              * The radio buttons are itself a list, so we might skip
                the additional bullets.
      * It would be just great if the "For help on this, see here" could
        just open an additional section below the current section. That
        would save the users to jump back an forth with the newly opened
        browser windows.

I hope this list doesn't look discouraging - quite the contrary. To me,
it's a real please that somebody picked up this topic. So if you need
more detailed proposals / an in-depth review, then please let me know
(or just ping the Design Team). I'll wait for your request until you
think it's ready ...

Again, thanks for working on that!

Cheers,
Christoph