Bugzilla – Full Text Bug Listing
| Summary: | Welcome Questionnaire: Showing config dialog on startup is bad practice | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Tools] Oomph | Reporter: | Chuck Bridgham <cbridgha> |
| Component: | Setup | Assignee: | Eike Stepper <stepper> |
| Status: | RESOLVED FIXED | QA Contact: | |
| Severity: | normal | ||
| Priority: | P3 | CC: | cbridgha, cdtdoug, daniel_megert, eclipse-bugs, Ed.Merks, mail, marcel.bruch, mknauer, mober.at+eclipse, sebastian.zarnekow, stepper, wayne.beaton |
| Version: | 1.1.0 | ||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | PC | ||
| OS: | Windows 7 | ||
| See Also: | https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=487548 | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Bug Depends on: | |||
| Bug Blocks: | 459836 | ||
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Description
Chuck Bridgham
Hi Chuck,
You're referring to Oomph's "Welcome Questionnaire" and I'd like to clarify why and how we've done that.
We've carefully analyzed the top annoyances that people complain about at "I hate Eclipse". It turned out that the default values for a very small number of preferences cause the most anger for many users. Of course one could debate endlessly whether it would be better to change these preference defaults and maybe this could be done in a few cases, but generally it's just impossible to make everybody happy with any chosen default value.
So we've decided to address this real problem with our Welcome Questionnaire. Because we know that these initial pop-ups can be easily experienced as annoying, too, we do two things:
1) We've invested considerable work to make it fresh and appealing. Our Oomph users that have already tested it during the past two or three months all liked it a lot. Among the nicest feedback comments was "The new Ooomph wizard looks too cool to be eclipse. But when it goes away I feel a bit sad only looking at plain old eclipse ;-(".
2) And very importantly, the dialog does not pop up at each startup of your package and not once per new workspace or anything. It only pops up once per user. The results of the questionnaire (including the facts that it has been executed and perhaps has been canceled) are recorded into a file under ${user.home}, so that we really don't bother the same user more than once.
I hope that these infos can help to change your mind about our questionnaire because we believe that it addresses an important problem for many users and doesn't upset the other users. Of course I'm interested in hearing what your users really say about it...
Cheers
Eike
Technical reference: Bug 450871 describes how to disable the "Welcome Questionnaire". Emotional ;-) reference: http://www.ihateeclipse.com/ >We've carefully analyzed the top annoyances that people complain about at "I hate Eclipse".
Just make sure you're not creating a new thing that people can hate Eclipse about ;).
BTW, representing new users, they won't understand why this dialog exists. They're not privy to the politics that happen at Eclipse. If users really hate these preference settings, why aren't they turned the right way by the time the user gets them? (In reply to Doug Schaefer from comment #4) > If users really hate these preference settings, why aren't they turned the > right way by the time the user gets them? In many cases that would just make the other 50% hate us. (In reply to Eike Stepper from comment #5) > (In reply to Doug Schaefer from comment #4) > > If users really hate these preference settings, why aren't they turned the > > right way by the time the user gets them? > > In many cases that would just make the other 50% hate us. True, that's why I focus on new users. Old users will use us whether they hate it or not. I just want to make sure the new user experience is the best we can make it so we can continue to grow our community. This dialog is very confusing for new users who won't even know what these options mean because they haven't used the tool yet. Oh, my god! Just upgraded to M5 and this dialog popped up. It is the worst. It was even hard to get rid of. The last thing I wanted to do at that time was see it. This makes me wonder if it's possible to be less constructive... If I recall correctly, this dialog was once part of the installer RCP app. I think that I prefer that: when using the installer, you get a chance to configure your preference as part of the wizard interface. We might even consider the start up following installation via the installer to be a special mode in which it makes sense to pop up a dialog, but it still feels like the wrong time. Does it make sense to just add a welcome entry for the default preferences configuration? We're hoping to steer most users to the installer, so most users will get a chance to leverage the preferences configuration if it's part of the installer. For those users who download a package, some number of them will notice and then use a link on the welcome screen to open the dialog. Having a link on the welcome screen also gives users an opportunity to reopen the dialog and redo their preferences configuration (or, I suppose, they could just use the preferences dialog). (In reply to Wayne Beaton from comment #9) > If I recall correctly, this dialog was once part of the installer RCP app. I > think that I prefer that: when using the installer, you get a chance to > configure your preference as part of the wizard interface. > > We might even consider the start up following installation via the installer > to be a special mode in which it makes sense to pop up a dialog, but it > still feels like the wrong time. > > Does it make sense to just add a welcome entry for the default preferences > configuration? > > We're hoping to steer most users to the installer, so most users will get a > chance to leverage the preferences configuration if it's part of the > installer. For those users who download a package, some number of them will > notice and then use a link on the welcome screen to open the dialog. > > Having a link on the welcome screen also gives users an opportunity to > reopen the dialog and redo their preferences configuration (or, I suppose, > they could just use the preferences dialog). +1 to link from welcome screen (In reply to Chuck Bridgham from comment #10) > +1 to link from welcome screen I'd rather embed it on the welcome screen instead of linking to some dialog. This would make it non modal and thereby less intrusive. I've to admit that I didn't try the recent dialog thus I don't know if it is one of the first questions, but I'm pretty sure that there is no right or wrong about many preferences, e.g. things like dark or light theme, line numbers or not, etc. Long story short: a non modal solution would be nice. In the end, the number of clicks to the first project would be exactly the same as without the wizard but it would still allow to configure the most common settings to my liking. (In reply to Sebastian Zarnekow from comment #11) > (In reply to Chuck Bridgham from comment #10) > > +1 to link from welcome screen > > I'd rather embed it on the welcome screen instead of linking to some dialog. > This would make it non modal and thereby less intrusive. I've to admit that > I didn't try the recent dialog thus I don't know if it is one of the first > questions, but I'm pretty sure that there is no right or wrong about many > preferences, e.g. things like dark or light theme, line numbers or not, etc. > > Long story short: a non modal solution would be nice. In the end, the number > of clicks to the first project would be exactly the same as without the > wizard but it would still allow to configure the most common settings to my > liking. +1 for moving it somewhere else. It's useful for a certain set of our users, but certainly not all. Again new users won't know what this thing means, whether it's here or in the installer. All I'm asking is that you consider and give priority to new users when making UX decisions. Put yourself in their shoes, think like they think, give them an experience they'll really like and then they can deal with issues like really bad defaults for certain preferences. Sebastien makes a great point. The number of clicks to getting that first project running needs to be really small and easy to understand. And yes, I include running which is why I'm working on the LaunchBar to make that dead easy. >This makes me wonder if it's possible to be less constructive... Sorry, but I was wrote that while I was in a new user mindset. That's what was going through my mind at the time. Is there any objection to moving this bug to the Oomph product? Please do... The changes are not only relevent to the EPP packages, but anywhere OOmph is installed. Thanks +1. Though I think there is a bug in Oomph on this already. (In reply to Doug Schaefer from comment #15) > +1. Though I think there is a bug in Oomph on this already. I don't see a good match. It was this one but it's already marked fixed. https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=458454 (In reply to Wayne Beaton from comment #16) > (In reply to Doug Schaefer from comment #15) > > +1. Though I think there is a bug in Oomph on this already. > > I don't see a good match. Ah, wait, the fix is what created this bug... (In reply to Doug Schaefer from comment #17) > It was this one but it's already marked fixed. > > https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=458454 Oh, wait, the fix is what created this bug... I've disabled the Welcome Questionnaire at startup time: http://git.eclipse.org/c/oomph/org.eclipse.oomph.git/commit/?id=3b68d7215c5665d1c9198dba072c45c12cc47317 |