New User Features and Structures¶

Summary¶

Based on the new user stories and navigation workflow, new user features and structures have been identified to address the need for a clearer and more user friendly experience for those new to crabgrass.

The following goals, as well as new thinking around the sitehome, should be expanded upon and implemented.

Goals¶

Ninja Help Documentation: help documentation (with different levels of user type, like gmail has gmail ninjas)
Welcome Box Pop Ups: modal box / welcome box pop ups
New Users group: A pre-seeded New Users Group and Help Documentation Group (in 1 group)
Tool tips

Ninja Help Documentation¶

Split the FAQs, Tips and Tricks and Help documentation into different levels of users ala gmail’s help ninjas:
mail.google.com/mail/help/tips.html

Welcome Box Pop Ups¶

For phase two these need to be redesigned so that they “pop out” of the app, making it clear that they can be hidden, and giving the info in them more prominence on the page.

They should have a cross app “welcome box” ui consistancy. The link should always be in the same place. For example we could have a welcome/info box all over the app. On the group landing page this could have a message such as, “Hi, welcome – groups are the fundamental building block of crabgrass, etc”

New Users group¶

The new users group is a group that all new users are automatically added to. This group would come standard with every cg instance, and have pre-seeded info already added to the instance.

This group will combine Help Forums, encouraging Peer to Peer help, with the pre-seeded information bundle:

the Ninja Help Documentation
Tips and Tricks from the moderators (possibly a blog)
FAQs
and function as a sandbox that new users can practice in before committing themselves to participating in a new group.
Announcements could also find a place in this group perhaps? These announcements could be highlighted by the moderators for placement in the feed on Sitehome.

Tool tips (was: Inline “alt” messages)¶

Using either css or if needed ajax, we could utilise “tool tips” as info boxes.

“Tool tips” are small “hover boxes” with information about the item being hovered over. We could use these for all kinds of help messages throughout the site. An important consideration is whether

We should also go over all the “alt” text in the site to make sure it is descriptive and helpful.