Where would a new user start?

Overall I am finding version 4 much easier than 3.  It took a long time (like years) to figure out some of the features in versions 2 and 3.

My biggest frustration in version 4 is not being able to do some of the things I did regularly in version 3 - That aside coming from version 1 to 2 was far more intimidating than from 3 to 4 for me.  

My biggest hurdle with version 4 was "what do I do with this homepage"  To me the homepage should be a place to lead you into what ever you are opening the program to do (study, read, etc.).  it should be simple and informative - The home page looks nice, but is overwhelming (My eyes still don't know where to look).

Some simple non technical options would make more sense to me:  Read a Book (takes you to your library to select a book - remembers the last book you were reading) - Start a study (opens either as exegetical or passage guide or word study - remembers your last study) - Be Encouraged (takes you to your daily reading with devotionals, etc.) Read the News (takes you to the current "home page") 

You could take up most of the screen with these 4 simple items with a pleasing graphic to go with each one.  This way the homepage would be a helpful part of the program, something that leads you into your task.

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we thought we'd made 4.0 infinitely easier for new users (though, by
definition, confusing to experienced 3.0 users).

Our thought was the 4.0 would offer a lot of "places to start" to new
users right away, and that the simple three button interface in the upper left
-- home, library, search -- would be easy to understand quickly.

Please, if you get a chance, do have your wife try it, and let me know where
she gets lost.

Bob, my wife spent about 30 minutes with v.4 last
night. She has a fairly good grasp of basic Bible study (has a Bible college
degree, uses a commentary each day in her Bible reading). She is no techie, but
she does use the computer quite a bit. She has never used any Bible software.

I tried not to give her any preconceptions about the
program. I just asked her to think of some ways Bible study software might be
useful for her (commentaries, word meanings, looking up historical things
mentioned in the Bible), and then I watched as she started playing around with
v.4. She's reading in II Peter right now, so she had some things from II Peter
3 she could try to look up.

First
steps - the big buttons When she was looking at the home page, I asked
"What do you think is on this page?" She said "Stuff they want
me to buy. It looks like a page from a CBD (Christian Book Distributors)
catalog."

Then she went up to the top of the page and moused
over the library and search buttons. She clicked "library," but was
completely baffled by the pop-down box with the first few books in the library
listed. She had no idea how that would be helpful for her, so she moved on.

I think it's extremely important to note that neither the library nor search icons were any help to her. Basic, Bible, morph, syntax? That stuff meant nothing to her, and she couldn't figure out how to find what she needed in either one. So I think this is a big problem - the two most obvious places to go, the two biggest buttons, may need some more work to be helpful for non-power-users.

So after giving up on both of those, she looked briefly at the file, guides, and tools
drop-downs. You could tell she was seeing some things that might be helpful,
but I was fascinated that she chose to keep going and mouse over the resource
shortcuts I had placed on the toolbar. That's where she first opened a Bible
and looked up II Peter 3.

Trying
to find helpful information She eventually did try
out one of the guides, and started to make some progress with that. One of the
major things I noticed was that she had a very hard time figuring out the tabs
and windows. It seems to me that you have intentionally shrunk the navigation
elements to leave as much room as possible for the actual workspaces. But the
navigation elements are so small that she never even noticed them.

Examples: she did not notice the tabs that showed
her the name of the current resource, and allowed her to switch back and forth.
She is used to using a tabbed browser, so in theory she should have been able
to figure it out. But she said the tabs were so small and the colors so similar
that it didn't catch her attention at all. Other elements, like the
"x" for closing the window, were hard for her to find. There was no
way she was going to find the little marker on the vertical scroll bar - it was
way too faint. I could tell she didn't even know it was there - she kept using
the mouse wheel to scroll up and down. Even the different sections in the guide
were separated from one another in such subtle ways that she really didn't
notice the different sections.

Typing a topic in the "go" box on the home
page was not helpful at all. It brought up a large list of library search
results, and she quickly gave up. She was trying to find info on the Nicolaitans.
With a bit of help from me, she did find the "biblical people" guide.

One thing that was very useful for her was the
information that popped up on a mouse-over. She depended on this, almost to an
extreme (she wouldn't click and open the resource - just read whatever was in
the popup).

Trying
v.3 Then
I showed her v.3. Again, I tried not to give her any preconceptions. I just
asked her thoughts on that interface, compared to the v.4 interface. She
immediately said "Oh, this is much simpler," and started playing
around much more quickly and confidently.

After we were done, I asked her to rate her
experience with v.4 on a scale of 1-10. She gave it a surprisingly high score -
7 or 8. I asked why, and she said "There was a lot of information there.
It was just hard to get to." She gave the home page a much lower score,
and obviously felt the v.3 interface was more conducive.

So is v.4 "infinitely easier for new
users"? Maybe once they've had some coaching and training on the basics. But
from my wife's perspective, v.3 was definitely easier for getting started.

I'm trying to be helpful for you!!

After we were done, I asked her to rate her experience with v.4 on a scale of 1-10. She gave it a surprisingly high score - 7 or 8. I asked why, and she said "There was a lot of information there. It was just hard to get to." She gave the home page a much lower score, and obviously felt the v.3 interface was more conducive.

So is v.4 "infinitely easier for new users"? Maybe once they've had some coaching and training on the basics. But from my wife's perspective, v.3 was definitely easier for getting started.

I'm trying to be helpful for you!!

Thanks for this. I am not surprise by the outcome & the Logos 3 Home page.

Ted

 

Thanks TImothy and Kevin, this is what I would have expected also but was not sure if my experience as a user of LL2.0 and LBX 1.0 - 3.0 (along with lots of other bible software - most noteably Quick Verse 3.0 - 7.0) was clouding my judgement.

I am very pleased to be a part of this group, (and I have had no download or indexing problems) but I feel as if I have one hand tied behind my back. Bob, are these "non Bible study people" all going to be versed in command line programming? I'll admit that I missed that lesson back in DOS days. Without specific "how-to" info the new library priority/rating system still makes no sense. (There have been a few helpful suggestions on the forums but they are very hard to find)  and on my machine the  "draggable" short-cuts are hit-and-miss or glacially slow. If I (as a fairly advanced "Association-collections-keylinks-toolbar" type) person is having trouble making "head-or-tails' of this new approach how is the new "non-Bible study" person to persevere?  Or are they just expected to stop at the passage guides?  I admit that I am also busy writing sermons and Bible studies and that limits learning time. But I just feel that I can't find or access or "get-at" a lot of my (expensive) resources. New people may find the "news page" interesting but I really wonder if they will be very motivated to buy new resources?

(I will be consulting the help guide - I also don't know if the sluggishness is due to the interminable indexing or if this older P4 2.2 gig machine just can't "cut it.)

Keeping up with ALL the forum posts but already feeling the pressure to get this weeks sermon done.

Thanks, Steve

The New User and the default English dictionary.

This won't happen to someone with a base package I suppose because they won't have as many resources to choose from but when I first started Logos4 the default English dictionary was Collins Latin Dictionary! How would a new user go about fixing that? I decided they would find an English dictionary in their library and give it five stars. So I faithfully found MW 11th ed and gave it five stars. The results are in and they are puzzling.

It now defaults to MW 10th ed for some English words. Not sure why it is going with 10 instead of 11. BUT when I click on "Savior" or "Thessalonians" or "withhold" or "situation" it goes with BDAG! If I click on "prophet" it takes me to "prophetess" in ISBE 1915 (this dict is quite popular with many words). If I click on "Christ" or "body," etc. it takes me to Yale Anchor. "millennial" takes me to Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology. If I click on "shall" or "phrase" I go back to Collins Latin D. The WINNER for confusion was clicking on "sexual" in 1 Cor 7:2 in the LEB. It took me to "diaspora" in the Dictionary of the Later NT and Its Developments.

It's also spinning around in Not Responding land and throwing these errors, although this may be the Power Lookup tab:

2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.4.10
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.23.1
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.23.4
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.51.10
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: tdnt.8.359-60

All this to say a new user will be totally confused about simply clicking on an English word and expecting a definition. Starring the MW11 ed seems to have done nothing to fix the problem. What would a new user try next? How about the Help utility...won't find much help on this issue there. How about phoning Logos customer support and asking them.

Tom

Our thought was the 4.0 would offer a lot of "places to start" to new users right away, and that the simple three button interface in the upper left -- home, library, search -- would be easy to understand quickly.

In 4.0 even the Passage Guide is smarter; it auto opens multiple Bibles, opens the first commentary, etc. It seems to be just what you're calling a "set design."

Please, if you get a chance, do have your wife try it, and let me know where she gets lost.

Bob,

even though you were addressing Tom, I'd like to chime in if I may.

I'm a tinkerer and a "semi-power-user," I format my machines at least once a year, I keep close track of my files, I'm a "partition head" sort of person...and I did step back a bit and tried to get myself to see the logic of V4.

My impression is that it's a good piece of software. It's NOT like v3; things are done differently, it's a little like getting used to the "new management" who want to do things differently and everyone grumbles because "we've never done it that way"

I have warmed up to v4 and I really like it; there are many features that I've come to like. Having said that; my wife is NOT a power user...she's in the "other" catagory; "I just wanna do my bible study and not mess around"

So my wife and I were sitting at the dinner table and I got her to dive into it and she was impressed. As I said; she is not a tech head, she is in your "non power user" category...she just wants to type a passage in, get all the relevant info and go from there. Right click words; do BWS etc.

So the one thing that really needs to be implemented is what Damian suggested: the "first time user dialogue box" thing....a person like my wife WOULD NEVER figure out what we've been figuring out about setting priorities!

When a first time user fires the app up, he/she should see something like the following to make the setup painless...first impressions are important! If the software isn't set up right...the results will be wrong, and the user will become disenchanted, and tell his /her friends that E-sword was better...not realizing any of the nuances that power users know...

this whole thing should take 10 minutes or less and set all the important things; preferred resources, home page yes or no, whatever...

Saw that Bob picture.

Had to supress a shudder.

My first thought was "Clippy" from Microsft office.  (Shudder)

The second thought was Microsoft Bob.  (gag)

Saw that Bob picture.

Had to supress a shudder.

 

My first thought was "Clippy" from Microsft office.  (Shudder)

The second thought was Microsoft Bob.  (gag)

TCB,
that' was the idea...just a bit of a joke....

But I am serious about the "new user" help thing....make it so you can turn it off but if someone cannot be "walked through" the most common set ups and common tasks right from the start....they are gonna go back to E-Sword and wonder what all of the fuss is about with Logos.

There HAS to be a thing right off the bat to tell them what to do...it's not apparent...

When someone does their first search and get's all this crazy stuff and none of it is from the bibles or references that they wanted...they are going to become disillusioned very quickly.

The default list of "KeyLink destinations" (as we used to call them in LDLS3) is completely unordered in Logos 4 Beta 2. (It may be alphabetical, it may be in order of internal resource ID, it may be the order in which you discovered the resources; I don't know.) A more sensible default ordering will be established in an upcoming beta.

We'll also be correcting resource metadata to stop Latin dictionaries and Greek lexicons being used as destinations for English words.

Sounds good. I think that will help the new user and anyone else not proficient in changing hidden settings.

tom,

I guess that's what I was suggesting...that the default be the "easy" version and people like us could "turn that off" for our needs.

tom,

I guess that's what I was suggesting...that the default be the "easy" version and people like us could "turn that off" for our needs.

OK, Sound good!