[kde-doc-english] Comments on KDE documentation

[Jud Craft]

Hello there.  I was recently advised to repost this on the
kde-doc-english list.  My main objective was to comment on the design
of the KDE help system, so I don't mean to be unnecessarily cruel to
docs.kde.org in particular in my argument below.

I suppose it all comes down to the difference between mere
documentation, and a Help System.  The focus of the argument in
kde-usability was that a different design for the former might help
maintainability (but last I checked, they were discussing wikis),
where my argument for the latter (Help System) is that either A) KDE
doesn't really have much of one (in terms of a context-sensitive and
easily approachable help interface) or B) the current implementation
(Help Center) might could use a more task-centric redesign.

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Docs.kde.org is application-and-library-specific.  Not
activity-specific.

Users like to burn CDs and setup an email account.  "kdebase-apps",
"kde-pim", and "Search by Application Name" are just hurdles getting
in their way.

In addition, having up front, on the documentation site, to figure out
which library/program/VERSION OF KDE is extremely unintuitive.  A user
won't care if he's using KDE3 or KDE4 or 4.1 or 4.2.  Sending email
isn't a KDE-version-specific task.

Hence we can easily conclude docs.kde.org is obviously geared towards
a different audience -- mainly those who need reference, NOT
instruction or tutorials.

[Note this is not a criticism of the actual DOCUMENTATION for KDE
programs -- several manuals (Kontact, Amarok, etc) are very useful.
This post _IS_ a criticism of the entire design of docs.kde.org, and
the paradigm of program-centric application access being unsuited for
casual users.]

Mac Help Center, Windows XP/Vista Help Center, and even the GNOME Help
Center demonstrate a much more activity-centric approach ("Burn a CD",
"Share your documents", "Paint a picture", "Clean up your PC"), and
for this reason (if they actually succeed in attracting users to open
the darn help program in the first place) they have a much better
chance of actually assisting the casual user.

This is the same problem with the KDE Help Center; a lack of "getting
things done" focus, replaced with a "super large list and index of
every reference material we can cram into the documentation packages."