[Libreoffice] [UX]How to drive new users to style-based formatting (idea)

Octavio Alvarez alvarezp at alvarezp.ods.org
Wed Mar 23 15:37:43 PDT 2011


On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:40:00 -0800, Rafael Daud <rwrwdw at gmail.com> wrote:

> What if there was another way? An easier, more intuitive,  
> self-explanatory way?

I would like that too. However, it is very difficult to achieve this.

> That way, even the most newbie will know right from the start he's  
> working with styles.

The newbie will "know" right from the start that LibreOffice "is
broken" or simply it doesn't do what they think it should do.

I have talked about styles to the general public. Even though all of
them fully understood and were impacted by the power of this feature,
very few really took the time to learn it, even after the demo.

Styles is not an easy-to-push feature for the average user. If a user
doesn't have a need for it, he won't mind, he won't care, and you are
just getting in the way.

Most people think "how can I get this done in a way I understand". Very
few think "how can I get this done in the least amount of work".

What will the user do? Learn to uncheck the box. It will be frustrating
for them to have to uncheck the box each and every time.

I say let it stay that way and let only those that are interested to
discover it.

Of course, I'd like to be wrong about this.

Best regards.


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