| nhandler | Meeting in 15 minutes, correct? | 21:45 |
|---|---|---|
| === nhandler changed the topic of #ubuntu-doc to: Ubuntu Documentation Team - visit https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam to contribute | Installation Guide Meeting July 2, 2009 at 21:00 UTC in #ubuntu-doc | Get involved! http://www.mdke.org/?p=67 | Channel log at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/ | Please observe the Ubuntu Code of Conduct - http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct | ||
| DougieRichardson | nhandler: yes | 21:47 |
| * DougieRichardson waves to philbull | 21:56 | |
| * philbull salutes DougieRichardson | 21:56 | |
| philbull | how's it going Dougie? | 21:56 |
| nhandler | Hey philbull | 21:57 |
| philbull | hey nhandler | 21:57 |
| philbull | anyone else here for the IG team meeting? | 21:57 |
| KelvinGardiner | hi | 21:57 |
| DougieRichardson | not bad Phil and you | 21:57 |
| missaugustina | I'm here for the mtg | 21:58 |
| philbull | hey KelvinGardiner | 21:58 |
| philbull | hey missaugustina | 21:58 |
| philbull | DougieRichardson: not bad, looking forward to rocking some docs... | 21:58 |
| DougieRichardson | philbull: indeed, looking forward to seeing how the new structure pans out. | 21:59 |
| philbull | OK, I'll give it another couple of minutes | 22:01 |
| DougieRichardson | cool. The Golden Child is on Sky anyway... | 22:02 |
| philbull | OK then, shall we begin? | 22:09 |
| nhandler | Sure | 22:09 |
| badenochs_ghost | Yes | 22:09 |
| missaugustina | Sure thing | 22:09 |
| DougieRichardson | +1 | 22:09 |
| KelvinGardiner | +1 | 22:09 |
| philbull | OK, what has everyone been up to this week? | 22:09 |
| philbull | No need to take it in turns | 22:10 |
| badenochs_ghost | I've been starting to look into style guides. Had a couple of brief email interactions with our writers. | 22:10 |
| nhandler | We had an Ubuntu-Chicago meeting where we started discussing some possible educational sessions that might be a good opportunity to test out the guide and observe new installations | 22:10 |
| missaugustina | Well, for the writers, I think we're still figuring out who is working on what. | 22:10 |
| philbull | I ran a user test, to try and get a feel for them | 22:11 |
| Avi1 | Right, I sent some comments about the style guide (and I'm here, even though I said in teh Doodle I wasn't available... just really late) | 22:11 |
| philbull | hey Avi1, glad you could make it | 22:11 |
| nhandler | I also noticed that if we stick to the wiki spec, we will need to observe much more than a user installing ubuntu | 22:11 |
| philbull | nhandler: how so? | 22:11 |
| nhandler | philbull: A lot of the bullets are about things that would take place after the actual installation. This is why I think it might be better to parse the forums/LP/IRC to get a general feel for common issues than to observe live installations | 22:12 |
| philbull | nhandler: I'd still like to observe a few installations | 22:13 |
| * DougieRichardson brb - children playing up | 22:13 | |
| philbull | less than 10 should be enough | 22:13 |
| nhandler | philbull: I agree, but installations alone will not be enough | 22:13 |
| philbull | I agree. | 22:13 |
| philbull | I meant to reply to your email earlier | 22:13 |
| nhandler | Personally, I would love it if the writers could put together some bullets for each section before they begin writing | 22:13 |
| nhandler | That way, I can test out the steps to see what real users think before they spend more time on it | 22:14 |
| philbull | I think the testing job is going to be a big one | 22:14 |
| badenochs_ghost | I have a help desk team who is pretty tech savvy but I've been amazed at what they do during an Ubuntu installation. | 22:14 |
| missaugustina | I usually do an outline first, so no problem. | 22:14 |
| KelvinGardiner | nhandler: That sounds like a good idea | 22:14 |
| philbull | I think that there are 3 distinct user testing phases: | 22:14 |
| philbull | 1. Initial testing to see what the problems are | 22:14 |
| philbull | 2. Testing during writing, to make sure we're on the right track | 22:15 |
| Avi1 | I do the same as missaugstina. I think the writers still need to divide up tasks, but we should probably work on one main outline. | 22:15 |
| philbull | 3. Final testing, to make sure the whole guide works well | 22:15 |
| philbull | Avi1: There's an outline on the blueprint, though it's not very detailed | 22:15 |
| nhandler | Also, on an unrelated note, I saw the conversation that was going on with cjwatson | 22:16 |
| philbull | https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/KarmicInstallationGuide | 22:16 |
| Avi1 | Right, a more detailed outline, based on the that | 22:16 |
| philbull | nhandler: can we come to that next please? | 22:16 |
| nhandler | Are we going to try and use the existing material at all? | 22:16 |
| nhandler | Sure philbull | 22:16 |
| philbull | OK, so what do people think of the existing outline? | 22:17 |
| philbull | it's pretty high-level | 22:17 |
| nhandler | For now, I think it is fine. although we will most likely be making changes to it as we get further along | 22:18 |
| philbull | definitely | 22:18 |
| badenochs_ghost | I thinks its a good start. My only concern is with the wubi portion. That seems like a possible separate or forked installation guide. | 22:18 |
| missaugustina | I think it's a good starting point | 22:18 |
| philbull | wubi is a concern of mine too | 22:18 |
| philbull | I think it's necessary to cover it though, since a lot of users want to use it | 22:19 |
| Avi1 | It's definately a good start. Wubi should be a separate chapter/Heading level, along with all of the different types of installations. | 22:19 |
| nhandler | philbull: But how deeply? Wubi installations will have a lot of different issues than a normal installation | 22:19 |
| badenochs_ghost | nhandler: I agree. | 22:19 |
| Avi1 | Non-techie users are going to see Wubi as a legitimate option along w/ other types | 22:19 |
| nhandler | Avi1: We were asked not to mention some of the other types of installations by cjwatson | 22:20 |
| philbull | nhandler: I'd like to see a basics-only treatment in the guide (as we will be doing with ubiquity) | 22:20 |
| philbull | specific common problems can be addressed in the Troubleshooting section | 22:20 |
| nhandler | philbull: So pretty much, explain what it is, and why they might want to use it? | 22:20 |
| philbull | Well, I though that we might start out by outlining the different methods of installation and helping the user to decide which to use | 22:21 |
| badenochs_ghost | philbull: If I understand correctly, we are trying to help the new to Ubuntu user find the cleanest path to a working Ubuntu installation. | 22:21 |
| philbull | badenochs_ghost: that's right | 22:21 |
| badenochs_ghost | The paths would be wubi, clean install, or dual boot? | 22:21 |
| philbull | I'm not interested in fully documenting the installation process | 22:21 |
| philbull | badenochs_ghost: yes, that's pretty much it. Add-in "install from USB stick" | 22:22 |
| missaugustina | Yeah, my understanding is this is meant as a "quick start" guide | 22:22 |
| philbull | missaugustina: It should be slightly more indepth than a quick start guide, but certainly not a full manual. | 22:22 |
| philbull | I think we should set a target for how useful the guide should be | 22:22 |
| philbull | perhaps, it should help 80% or so of users to get Ubuntu installed | 22:23 |
| philbull | there are too many special cases to get 100% coverage | 22:23 |
| nhandler | philbull: It would also be nice if this guide were somewhat short so that users could print out hard-copies | 22:23 |
| badenochs_ghost | The level of detail will be difficult. For instance, look at the number of users who aren't even sure how to burn the initial ISO. | 22:23 |
| philbull | nhandler: yes, I'd love it if it was easy for people to give this out with Ubuntu CDs | 22:24 |
| philbull | badenochs_ghost: it will, but that's what your job is about! | 22:24 |
| Avi1 | I think that's actually one of the most difficult things to describe. I previously wrote something on installation and that was one of the hardest parts I had (and didn't do it complete enough) | 22:24 |
| philbull | These are good points Avi1 and badenochs_ghost | 22:25 |
| philbull | What I'd like to encourage each of you to do is to grab a random Windows user | 22:25 |
| philbull | and get them to install Ubuntu on a computer (helps if you have one which you don't mind breaking) | 22:25 |
| badenochs_ghost | I can do that. | 22:26 |
| philbull | It can be a real eye opener - you'd be amazed at the things that people struggle with | 22:26 |
| missaugustina | I can also do that, I'll recruit my boyfriend ;D | 22:26 |
| philbull | missaugustina: I recruited my girlfriend to test empathy a few days ago | 22:26 |
| nhandler | I can recruit a few of the active forum members to help come up with a list of common problems during installation | 22:26 |
| KelvinGardiner | philbull: What do we want feedback on, will a virtual box install be ok? | 22:26 |
| missaugustina | Are we doing this with Karmic or do we want to do this with the latest stable release? | 22:27 |
| Avi1 | I think the suggestion of going through the forum was very useful | 22:27 |
| philbull | nhandler: excellent, but I must insist that you try and see a non-technical user trying to install Ubuntu | 22:27 |
| nhandler | philbull: I will ;) | 22:27 |
| missaugustina | I'm going to do a full computer, because sometimes BIOS settings can be a pain | 22:27 |
| philbull | missaugustina: latest stable | 22:27 |
| badenochs_ghost | missaugustina: thats a good idea. | 22:27 |
| philbull | KelvinGardiner: preferably a real computer, but use what you have ;) | 22:27 |
| philbull | my idea is that you should just say to a user "OK, install Ubuntu" | 22:28 |
| philbull | that's all you say to them | 22:28 |
| badenochs_ghost | How non-technical? Most people have not even installed an OS of any kind before since their computer usually come pre-installed. | 22:28 |
| philbull | then you get to observe them finding how to download Ubuntu, how to burn an ISO, how to boot the CD.... | 22:28 |
| philbull | badenochs_ghost: it needs to be the kind of user we're aiming this guide at | 22:28 |
| philbull | so, someone who's comfortable with maybe Word and IE/Firefox | 22:29 |
| missaugustina | Really? I think most people can install an OS, anyone running windows has had to reinstall at least once | 22:29 |
| nhandler | That isn't true missaugustina. I also think a lot of users would have a hard time figuring out how to boot from the CD (which might be difficult to explain in detail in a guide) | 22:30 |
| badenochs_ghost | I used to support home users on the side. None of my customers had ever installed the OS. They were using the same install it came with. | 22:30 |
| philbull | Guys, this is why I want you to see a non-techie struggle with installation | 22:30 |
| badenochs_ghost | nhandler: booting from a CD is an issue. You are right. | 22:30 |
| philbull | It can be really shocking what people don't understand | 22:30 |
| Avi1 | Single booting should be mostly like installing software. The hardest parts are multiple boots and making bootable CDs from ISO and booting from CD | 22:30 |
| Avi1 | I think that's where people will have the most difficulty with well-written instructions and a good guide. That's the more challenging part for users. | 22:31 |
| badenochs_ghost | We'll want to do a Wubi install with a non-techie too | 22:31 |
| missaugustina | Bootable CD depends on their burning software, can we really cover that in our guide? | 22:31 |
| Avi1 | but the rest won't be as challenging only if they have good instructions :) | 22:31 |
| philbull | OK, it's up to nhandler what we test when he comes up with a formal testing programme | 22:31 |
| badenochs_ghost | I think we'll need to pretty specific with the ISO burning. Otherwise, we lose users before they even begin. | 22:32 |
| philbull | this initial thing that I'm talking about is for your own personal enjoyment! | 22:32 |
| philbull | (though we can certainly record the data and use it later) | 22:32 |
| Avi1 | That's part of the challenge w/ that. I think we may have to suggest downloading InfraRecorder or something since different people have different software | 22:32 |
| nhandler | philbull: Personally, I think that we should begin the guide after they have booted from the live cd. That way, their personal computers and software are out of the equation (for the most part) | 22:32 |
| badenochs_ghost | Avi1: I agree. We need to choose something. | 22:32 |
| nhandler | badenochs_ghost: The issue with that is you don't know what OS (if any) they are coming from | 22:33 |
| philbull | nhandler: I disagree. I know it's difficult to cover those things, but they're big stumbling blocks | 22:33 |
| missaugustina | Avil: that makes sense. Provide instructions for one program and then provide links where they can get further info for others | 22:33 |
| badenochs_ghost | phillbull: Do you have that ISO statistic available that you showed me at WosCon? | 22:33 |
| philbull | Like I said, we don't need 100% coverage, just ~80% | 22:33 |
| philbull | So, we can forget Mac users (for the time being), for example | 22:33 |
| nhandler | philbull: But we can't recommend ISO burning software and instructions for every OS. Also, all computers will boot from a CD slightly differently | 22:33 |
| philbull | badenochs_ghost: sure, it's here (takes ages to load): https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PageHits | 22:34 |
| Avi1 | Windows and Mac. I wouldn't worry about someone coming from Solaris or something :-) | 22:34 |
| badenochs_ghost | nhandler: I think ISO software can be targeted at Windows users. | 22:34 |
| nhandler | So you only want to target Windows users switching to Ubuntu? | 22:34 |
| philbull | nhandler: initially, yes | 22:34 |
| philbull | they are our biggest user group. At least 80% | 22:34 |
| philbull | We can add other OSes later | 22:35 |
| nhandler | philbull: Just out of curiosity, where is that number from? | 22:35 |
| philbull | nhandler: I made it up! | 22:35 |
| philbull | But: if someone is switching from Linux, they are most likely more technically skilled | 22:35 |
| missaugustina | Windows represents the largest market share for OS, so it makes sense to target it. | 22:36 |
| philbull | Mac users are a much smaller proportion of non-techs than Windows users | 22:36 |
| philbull | I know it seems like we're preferring one OS, but it's a practical decision | 22:36 |
| philbull | BTW, PageHits just loaded. Look at the most popular item! We *need* to cover burning an ISO | 22:37 |
| nhandler | Ok, but I would like to warn everyone up front, people will notice and comment on this (many of the comments will be negative in nature) | 22:37 |
| badenochs_ghost | How do you eat an elephant? | 22:38 |
| badenochs_ghost | One bit at a time. | 22:38 |
| nhandler | :) | 22:38 |
| badenochs_ghost | Eventually, we want to cover the other OSes, but this is good start. | 22:38 |
| philbull | nhandler: that's my problem. Look at my job desc on the TeamRoles wiki page | 22:38 |
| philbull | I'm more than willing to explain our decisions | 22:38 |
| philbull | nhandler: that brings us nicely round to colin watson's comments | 22:39 |
| philbull | Please see the LP spec whiteboard: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/karmic-installation-guide | 22:39 |
| philbull | I think it's important that we get some decent user personas together, so we know who we're writing this guide for | 22:40 |
| philbull | nhandler: that's another job for you I'm afraid! | 22:40 |
| philbull | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personas | 22:41 |
| missaugustina | I can help out with that. | 22:41 |
| philbull | missaugustina: that would be great. Please get in touch with nhandler about it | 22:42 |
| nhandler | Sure thing philbull. I was waiting to do a lot of this until after this meeting so that I would have a better idea about what the team was aiming to accomplish with the guide | 22:42 |
| philbull | We *cannot* start writing without a set of decent personas | 22:42 |
| philbull | We should set a goal for what the guide should accomplish for each user too | 22:42 |
| * philbull is pleased with the progress of the meeting so far | 22:43 | |
| nhandler | philbull: Just so I have an idea, how are we planning on distributing this guide? Will it ship with Karmic? | 22:44 |
| philbull | nhandler: I hope so. It will definitely be on help.ubuntu.com | 22:45 |
| philbull | This is something for the editor and tech reviewer to work out though | 22:45 |
| badenochs_ghost | kI'm paying attention. | 22:45 |
| philbull | Once we have the personas, we can use those to inform our choice of distribution media | 22:45 |
| nhandler | philbull: Depending on how we distribute the guide, the various Freezes in the Karmic release cycle might affect us | 22:46 |
| badenochs_ghost | What is our timeline? | 22:47 |
| philbull | True. There's no problem with help.ubuntu.com, but if we want to include on the CD we need to respect Feature Freeze | 22:47 |
| philbull | badenochs_ghost: Documentation String Freeze | 22:47 |
| philbull | October the 1st | 22:48 |
| philbull | https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicReleaseSchedule | 22:48 |
| nhandler | We would also need to leave time to package it | 22:48 |
| philbull | nhandler: true, but we can work on that as we go along | 22:48 |
| philbull | we have ahathaway21, DougieRichardson and j1mc | 22:49 |
| philbull | they can work on getting the infrastructure set up | 22:50 |
| nhandler | 10 minute warning (if we are sticking to a 1 hour meeting) | 22:50 |
| philbull | nhandler: thanks | 22:50 |
| philbull | OK, last couple of things I want to discuss | 22:50 |
| philbull | Style guide? | 22:50 |
| badenochs_ghost | I've been looking at the Gnome Style guide. I just began digging in. I am open to other suggestions. | 22:51 |
| badenochs_ghost | I know it needs chosen soon. Exactly when? | 22:51 |
| philbull | badenochs_ghost: as soon as we have the style guide + personas, we can start the filling-out the outline and writing a few basic sections | 22:52 |
| philbull | You can adopt the GNOME Style guide as a base and then add extensions/clarifications if you like | 22:53 |
| philbull | it's up to you | 22:53 |
| philbull | OK, cool | 22:53 |
| badenochs_ghost | Excellent....I'll have time over out holiday to make the choice. I should have an answer on Monday. | 22:53 |
| philbull | OK, I'll recap in a sec | 22:54 |
| philbull | any more issues? | 22:54 |
| badenochs_ghost | Only personal...lol | 22:55 |
| missaugustina | LOL | 22:55 |
| philbull | heh | 22:55 |
| missaugustina | when should writers divvy up the tasks? | 22:55 |
| missaugustina | When we have persona + style guide info? | 22:55 |
| philbull | missaugustina: it's up to you guys. Whenever you start writing! | 22:55 |
| philbull | Personas + style guide are blockers for the writing to begin, so next 2 weeks would be great | 22:56 |
| philbull | I'd rather they were done properly than quickly, though, so if you need more time... | 22:56 |
| nhandler | I'll try my best to get the personas done in 2 weeks. How detailed do you want them to be? | 22:57 |
| philbull | missaugustina: have you written user personas before? | 22:57 |
| missaugustina | I think writers can start emailing and doing intitial research in the meantime. | 22:57 |
| missaugustina | I have for Use cases. | 22:57 |
| KelvinGardiner | missaugustina: +1 | 22:57 |
| philbull | OK, cool. nhandler, missaugustina has the training on this one | 22:57 |
| philbull | so we should take her lead | 22:58 |
| missaugustina | Mine were only a paragraph so I'll have to refer to other docs | 22:58 |
| nhandler | philbull: No problem. | 22:58 |
| missaugustina | The article you are referencing suggests personas are 1-2 pages, that seems a bit excessive to me | 22:58 |
| philbull | OK. Personas have to be reasonably detailed, but not excessively so | 22:58 |
| nhandler | missaugustina: They also have an example on http://www.usability.gov/analyze/personas.html | 22:59 |
| philbull | the aim of a persona is to help the writer empathise with the user's requirements | 22:59 |
| philbull | you need to see the task through the eyes of your users | 22:59 |
| philbull | this is why user testing is important too | 22:59 |
| missaugustina | Right, makes sense. I did "personas" when developing systems for end users, so it was focused specifically on data needs. | 22:59 |
| philbull | OK guys, time is almost up, but I think we need another 5 mins | 23:00 |
| missaugustina | Anyways so that's what my training is, so I'll work with nhandler and we'll flesh it out :) | 23:00 |
| badenochs_ghost | phillbull: can do | 23:00 |
| philbull | missaugustina: awesome | 23:01 |
| philbull | So, I'll recap now: | 23:01 |
| nhandler | Thanks a lot for the help missaugustina | 23:01 |
| philbull | Action items are: | 23:01 |
| philbull | Everyone: Observe someone trying to install Ubuntu. | 23:01 |
| philbull | DB and writers: Choose a style guide | 23:01 |
| philbull | Nathan and Augustina: Write personas | 23:02 |
| philbull | Nathan: collect data on problems user have with installation (user tests + sift through IRC/forums) | 23:02 |
| philbull | did I forget anything? | 23:03 |
| philbull | also, is everyone happy with what we've covered? | 23:04 |
| nhandler | I'm happy | 23:04 |
| badenochs_ghost | Yes on both accounts. | 23:04 |
| nhandler | When are we going to meet next? | 23:04 |
| philbull | I'm travelling between Jul-6 to Jul-13, so I won't be available until after then | 23:05 |
| philbull | You guys are free to self-organise a meeting though | 23:05 |
| philbull | (if you think you need/want one) | 23:06 |
| philbull | Thanks for being here at such short notice by the way! | 23:06 |
| badenochs_ghost | no problem | 23:06 |
| missaugustina | NP, just glad we got to meet and get the ball rolling | 23:06 |
| nhandler | So am I | 23:06 |
| philbull | Aha, I remembered something: | 23:06 |
| philbull | Please fill-out your info on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/KarmicInstallationGuide/TeamRoles if you haven't already | 23:07 |
| philbull | None of it is compulsory (if you're worried about privacy etc) | 23:07 |
| badenochs_ghost | Its not a problem...I have so many identities, I can always lose one. | 23:07 |
| philbull | I just thought, Avi1 and KelvinGardiner - apart from helping choose the style guide, what are you planning to work on? | 23:08 |
| philbull | (over the next 2 weeks) | 23:08 |
| Avi1 | Not sure. Either look over some installation issues or try to work more on an outline. | 23:09 |
| KelvinGardiner | It would be good if the writers can sort out which sections we are going to work on so we can to a bit of background work. | 23:09 |
| philbull | Avi1: that would be great. Please pick an area of the outline to concentrate on if you do that, though | 23:09 |
| philbull | KelvinGardiner: good idea | 23:10 |
| KelvinGardiner | maybe the writers and DB can meet next week to do that? | 23:10 |
| badenochs_ghost | I can do that. I'll contact the writers and we'll set a time. | 23:10 |
| KelvinGardiner | badenochs_ghost: OK | 23:10 |
| philbull | Great. Please keep the logs from your meeting if possible. | 23:11 |
| missaugustina | Sounds good to me, I'm not picky on what section of the outline I get :) | 23:11 |
| philbull | OK, I think I should call an end to the meeting | 23:11 |
| philbull | Thanks for coming everyone, I really appreciate the time you're putting in to this project | 23:11 |
| Avi1 | Thanks. For the Americans, have a great July 4 weekend and Independence Day. | 23:11 |
| missaugustina | Thanks for organizing this, Phil. It makes being involved a lot easier :D | 23:11 |
| missaugustina | Thx Avil! | 23:12 |
| badenochs_ghost | Avi1: Thank you! | 23:12 |
| nhandler | Just as a suggestion, it would be great if we were to use #ubuntu-meeting for future meetings | 23:12 |
| philbull | I'm going to hang around for another half hour or so, so get in touch if you like | 23:12 |
| philbull | nhandler: sure, we can do that. Is there any process I need to go through to reserve the channel? | 23:12 |
| nhandler | philbull: Just check that it isn't reserved http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendar and then reserve it https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Fridge/Calendar | 23:13 |
| philbull | thanks, I'll do that next time | 23:13 |
| nhandler | Here is a MootBot guide if you are interested in using that during the meeting: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScribesTeam/MootBot | 23:14 |
| Avi1 | Alright, good night. I really need to go to sleep! | 23:14 |
| badenochs_ghost | Where will the transcripts be posted? | 23:14 |
| KelvinGardiner | I'm also going to turn in for the night. See you guys later. | 23:17 |
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