[Bf-docboard] Survey Results

[Cal McGaugh]

1/26/2013

To: bf-docboard

Results of survey/poll
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?278419-Why-do-you-NOT-use-Blender-Wiki


Hi all,
sorry did not have time to make this prettier with proper formatting, but hope
it will still be useful information even if based on a small sample (~25 users).

All the replies have been compiled into four categories according to the
questions.

Hope to have a productive IRC meeting later this morning with everyone.

Cheers,

Cal McGaugh
www.blenderportal.com




1. How often do you use Blender Wiki?

I use Wiki each day, especially when I'm doing some demanding projects in
Blender.
Rarely
Every day. Lot of wrong things there but, every day
Monthly
1-2x per week
Rarely
Almost never, but would like to
Not often, but used it when beginning
Rarely <1/mo
Rarely
1x/mo
>=1/week
<weekly, >rarely
Daily
Few x/mo
Few x/wk
Rarely
Rarely
Rarely
Rarely
Rarely
Weekly
Weekly
Almost never



2. What is your first resource for learning Blender?

Videos, Wiki
Videos
google, probably forum results
Videos and browsing the forum here
 Video tutorials.
Videos
videos for use cases and techniques and release logs for exploring new stuff
Videos and this forum.
Google, Wiki
Google
Videos
mostly video tutorials, sometimes the wiki.
Videos and wiki
Videos, wiki
Wiki Videos 50/50
Wiki, videos, and books. In that order
the wiki for control explainations and how Blender itself works, and videos and
written tutorials for
artistic tutorials
Videos
Videos, but not just any videos
Videos from places cgcookie, or links from blendernation
Videos
Initially videotutorials
Videos…Wiki to look up specific tools



3. Why don't you use Wiki more often? Do you have specific complaints?

 Wiki is not always up-to-date.
 I know most areas of Blender well enough to not need it most of the time at
this point

-Blender website is often slow or non responsive
---Hard to navigate backwards
---otherwise don't personally need the manual anymore, unless for new features
 I only use it to see what's new. I know about blender everything I need to get
my job done.

It's not updated to the last features and tools and, in any case, even if
updated, the explanations
are usually not clear and exhaustive enough; if you are a coder you will easily
understand the meaning
of cryptic technical descriptions, if you are an average user, probably not.

Information is outdated and 2) information in the manual is often dumped on a
list without use cases.
In short it is more of a reference than real teaching material

Outdated info, non existing info (sometimes trying to find something
specifically with 2.6 selected,
it just jumps back to 2.5), doesn't 'feel' easy to navigate (search bar is in
weird position, feels
like it should be top right).

The menu items on the left seem to randomly collapse leaving you with no idea
where you were. The
menus on the right are just subset and don't give you the whole picture. If I
want to read several
sections I have to keep trying to remember which bit of the menu I was on last.

I follow the links (to videos). The wiki is rarely ever linked, so I don't
usually end up on it.

I mainly see it as reference documentation. Maybe it could be kept more
up-to-date, but I don't think
I would actually use it more because of that, it would just be that much more
useful when I do need
reference documentation.

The Wiki is often out of date on the newest features.

What I was looking for: How to cut cylinder in half? I found knife tutorial, but
I was not successful
during my attempt.

It needs to be kept updated and the spellchecking and formatting needs some
love!

generally i find the navigation within the wiki confusing and search results
often point me to an
outdated blender, usually 2.4. i also find the description lacking the details i
am looking for.

Tutorials - written or video - tend to not cover every single setting of a
certain feature. But
they do put them in the context of practical usage, and how it fits together
with other features. They
also put focus on subfeatures and settings relevant to a likely average project,
which is often what I
want to learn.
Technical documentation is valuable and important and in some situations
indispensable, it just
doesn't tend to be that often in my own case.

The readability of entries - or even parts of entries - tends to vary wildly.
Some large entries -
like Motion Tracking - don't use top-level categoreis with line-divisions at
all.
The headers for sections and subsections use the same big+bold text. In the
Motion Tracking entry,
it's not at all apparent that "Supervised 2d tracking" is a subsection of
"Getting Started". If those
header levels had the distinction of big/semibig (like on Wikipedia), the nested
structure would be
much clearer on the page.



4. What suggestions do you have to improve it so you will use it more often?

 Keeping up with all the new small changes
 keep it up to date, make sure screenshots are current with the UI

perhaps the wiki could have videos explaining the features, not only text

Give the documentation job (paid) to USERS and not to CODERS; this is not a
complaint towards coders,
they obviously do their best, but there is a difference in point of views. And,
always make examples
to better explain.

I can realize that balancing reference and tutorial can be quite hard. Linking
tutorials from manual
entries (like it used to be in the old wiki) is a good idea. The use of
techniques is endless of
course, and a manual cannot hope to cover all of them, but the basic use cases
should be in it.
Documentation often lags behind releases. The current system is strange: people
contributing code
should add documentation directly in the wiki, not only in the release logs.
Also, this would solve
the use case issue. Every tool is made to solve a specific problem. Maybe a
reminder on the
development mailing list would solve this.

 Hard to describe. Pages feel a bit cramped with menus on both sides. Rather I'd
have the currently
active menu expanded on the left, instead of that on the right. For example,
when I expand the
Compositing menu on the left and navigate to a page, on that page, the menus on
the left are all
collapsed again, but now suddenly the menu on the right shows where I am. I'd
rather not have the
right menu, just keep the active menu on the left expanded. And there's more
things like that, it
doesn't feel like it's working smoothly, you keep having to look for where to go
next.

Focus on documenting new features and changes to Blender, and make those
especially visible (e.g.
front-page "new feature" links). Then when new features come out, I'll likely go
to the wiki to learn
those new features. But you've got to be fast, otherwise I'll end up at other
resources first, and
then I'll already have learned it.

Updated material would be great. It would also be nice to have a "next page"
"previous page" feature
instead of having to click on the index to navigate while on a chapter.

 It my not be a bad idea to create a tutorial on manipulating simple shapes in
the various options. I
have found some of this on the cube of course, but not sure why it doesn't work
with cylinder. Should
operate across mesh I would think.

 introduce a section called 'External links/tutorials' to the pages, linking to
just that, external
tuts or videos.

I get motivated when i get something done, so if the Wiki will tell us
step-by-step what to do and at
the end we achieve something I will be happy using it everyday. Some kind of
Wikitutorials. For
example if the Wiki will tell not only what subdivision subsurfaces does but the
user models something
with the help of Wiki and at some point the user uses subsurf and then the wiki
emphasis about the use
of subsurf.

make it easier to find the technique i am looking for, and include video links
to relevent tutorials
(or just regular links to written tutorials) so i can understand what your
talking about in the wiki.

-Simpler explanations, as described above
-More images: Screenshots, illustrations, render examples, anything
-Simple step-by-step instructions to get starteed with. For example I see a lot
of posts about smoke
sim renders just being a big black box.

keep the wiki updated for more recent versions

 The Blender 2.6 Manual should have Blender 2.6 UI's and functionality
descriptions. What there is of
the updated material is good… but it only takes one outdated page for confusion
to set in.

For the pages still covering older verions (2.4 and 2.5) add a note somewhere
near the top or bottom
of the page stating whether or not the text on that page is still valid for the
current version (and
note the build if necessary).
Make sure someone keeps up with #1 as Blender changes.
Put in definition tooltips, the ones where when you hover your mouse over them a
tooltip appears
explaining what the term means. For the sake of beginners and those of us who
forget what a term means
twenty minutes after they encounter it, these should be on every single term
that isn't part of basic
English (or whatever language the docs appear in for the user).
Coordinate with the developers so that by the time a new feature appears in
Blender, wiki docs are
ready to drop into place as well.


 I don't know that I would for sure use a wiki more often in general, since I
have never particularly
thought of them as being different than just a regular HTML page, but I suppose
it is the layout and
content being out of date.
As more of a techie, I tend to prefer actual manuals that I can sit and read
offline, like pdf or
single HTML etc. Personally, I think manuals should be docbook or publican based
and made available
for online and offline consumption. A wiki complicates this since mediawiki
isn't really meant to be
used like we use it.

Maybe in addition to explanations of newer features you could add explanatory
notes of what is still
missing with a feature or what else is planned for it.

I agree with the suggestion about version notation for entries. "Last verified
for 2.xx".
If it's put into a good system, contributors can systematically hunt down the
oldest entries to verify
or update. If I were a contributor, putting that official 2.66 stamp on a page
after careful checking
would feel good. Maybe I'd even get a habit of checking certain features for
changes between versions
regularly.

And users with some knowledge of update history can be appropriately cautious
about entries... rather
than that constant feeling that maybe this was written for 2.52.





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