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| The problem is that users will not read specs. The will not read all the exceptions we put in like not allowing space after bullet, or that you have to close a heading with the excat number of equals signs you have at the beginning. People are learning the markup by trying out things. The will save and see what happens. They will maybe save again if it not works on the first try but thats it. If it still don't work they will tell you that markup sucks and all your hard developer work is in vain. |
| The problem is that users will not read specs. The will not read all the exceptions we put in like not allowing space after bullet, or that you have to close a heading with the excat number of equals signs you have at the beginning. People are learning the markup by trying out things. They will save and see what happens. They will maybe save again if it not works on the first try but thats it. If it still don't work they will tell you that markup sucks and all your hard developer work is in vain. |
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| I agree with the point that users will probably start looking at existing pages and doing some smaller edits. I think that is also a reason not to allow too many markup alternatives. An experienced user (like from Wikipedia) just says "Let's see how headings are done here' and adopt it. Users new to Wikis also want to find out how these headings are done. Both will see it in the existing Wiki code (or the formatting help of the Wiki). It is just confusing if they find different variants of headings there. Then they have to decide which variant they want to use, and they probably begin to wonder why there are these alternatives. |
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| -- SteffenSchramm, 2007-02-07 |
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| Welcome Jim Gettman, thank you for your input. Feel free to add yourself to [[People]] if you wish. |
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| I have several problems with the advices you posted -- in particular, I fail to see how they are relevant to Creole markup standard. I think they would be better directed at the browser and/or wiki wysiwyg editors developers. |
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| In particular, you talk about interactive behavior, preprocessing of the user input and design of data entry forms, etc. This has nothing to do with a text markup format. The only one of your advices that I can see directly applied to Creole is the last point, "Present data in the form optimal for the user's task.", which in case of Creole would be editing the page's text. Would you feel bad if we removed your advices, at least the ones about interactive user interface? |
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| On an unrelated thing -- I can see you're using rather unusual patter for the second-level bullet lists -- two asterisks seprated by a space. I've seen it only once before. Can I ask you where did you pick that up? I'm curious, and it could also help Creole (more experience is always better). |
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| -- RadomirDopieralski, 2007-02-08 |
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| While I agree with the sentiment stated in the title of this page, I also feel it's a red herring. I don't hear anybody honestly concerned about the amount of CPU time required to parse Wiki markup. It's going to be negligible in any case, although of course it's always possible to bloat that by having layers of interpreted languages, etc. |
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| I have two concerns that I feel "make the machine work harder" tends to sweep under the rug. Both affect usability directly. |
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| First, complex rules can be **mysterious** and **confusing.** To use one current example, if a space is sometimes required after an asterisk to make a bullet, but other times not, that increases the chance that the user will get the unexpected behavior, and be confused. The gain from having simple rules, easily expressible (in the scope of this community) by things like regexes, is not to reduce the CPU time required for parsing, but to reduce user confusion. |
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| Second, I think we need to work to make Creole as **consistent** as possible across wikis. That helps avoid breakage of markup as text is cut and pasted from one wiki to another, but, perhaps more importantly, avoids users having to carry around arcane rules about what works in one wiki but not another. |
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| I realize that the goal of consistency is in conflict with ExtensibleByOmission (in the extreme, a demand for perfect consistency means that extension is impossible), but I think it's possible to keep both in mind and balance the two. I think it's realistic, and desirable, to expect that all "bread-and-butter" markup is consistent between Creole implementations. Low-probability corner cases such as improperly nested styling markup, as well as things that obviously //look// like extensions (cf. [[Crossmark]] macros) concern me quite a bit less. But, to carry the example further, if one wiki treats a line reading "*bullet" as a list item, and another does not, we guarantee misformatting when moving either text or users betweeen wikis. |
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| -- [[Raph Levien]], 2007-02-08 |
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| There are generally two approaches to this: |
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| **Option first** is to use various heuristics, "smart" code, maybe even guessing based on probabilities (that's how MSIE determines document encodings and mime type), bayesian networks (that's how most spam filters work) or evolving interfaces (adaptive menus, khe, khe). This approach seems to work very good in most common cases and go down in flames in the rarer ones. It works best if you have very narrow target audience with very well defined tasks. The two most common reactions this kind of techinque are: "Amazing, it's the first time I see something like that, how do they do it?" and "*beep* *beep* *beep* paper clip *beep* get *beep* out of my *beep* I *beep* hate it when this *beep* *beep* mother*beep* *beep* mechanical idiot knows better what I want to do!". |
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| In general, it works miracles with one-time users that never expect to actually //know// the system and want to be guided by the hand. It prevents habituation and becoming the one who is actually in control. People //love// it in all kinds of information stands, interactive web pages created for entertainment, toys, educational programs, etc. People hate it in everything they view as tools, as means for some goal, not the goal itself. |
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| **The second option** is to use a very simple, even simplistic, totally rigid system, with very clear rules that can be observed from just a few common examples. This system must be totally predictable and open, so that everyone sees perfectly how it works. Ideally, you can say exactly what will happen by just looking at it -- in practice (in case of computers at least) this //is// dependent on prior experience, but we can assume the basic computer literacy for our users. |
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| While users generally tend to love or hate the things created with the first technique, they usually hardly have any emotional attachment to the second kind. They usually won't even notice them. They will be surprised that you pointed out the mere existence of these elements. "Yeah, it's there, isn't it obvious?" However, you tend to notice the lack of them. These //tools// are usually intimidating or even scary for first-time users, but allow really fast learning and habituation, provided that discoverability of the interface is accounted for. Ah, and they also encourage extending and building more complex things on top of them. |
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| While both approaches have their advantages, especially the first one guarantees easy adoption and allows for a very good branding compaign (love/hate is good for advertising), I strongly believe we should lean for the second option, as "the right thing" for a standard. |
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| -- RadomirDopieralski, 2007-02-08 |
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| I added a page called [[Ambiguities]] to document strategies on how to detect and solve those issues related to the stuff that forces us to make the machine (and the developer) work harder. I hope this helps us to sort out those problems better in the future. |
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| -- ChristophSauer, 2007-02-08 |
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| In re- //...fail to see how they are relevant to Creole markup standard. I think they would be better directed at the browser and/or wiki wysiwyg editors developers. ... Would you feel bad if we removed your advices, at least the ones about interactive user interface?// |
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| Yes, much of my edit was shamefully irrelevant to Creole, more of a rant against all the bad UI's I see. I saw a place to add value, so I did, figuring subsequent wikians can pare the crap and polish the gems. It was rude, really, because I didn't even read the discussion first. The beauty of Wiki is that it preserves consensus, while blogs or discussion threads preserve disagreement. //Ward Cunningham's Wiki digitally reverses the tragedy of the commons.// |
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| //...I can see you're using rather unusual patter for the second-level bullet lists -- two asterisks seprated by a space. I've seen it only once before. Can I ask you where did you pick that up?// |
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| As described for others, I didn't [[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/RTFM|RTFM]] before editing, and didn't see a "cheat sheet" button, so I made that up on the spot because it conveyed the desired meaning. |
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| I'm back to see the evolution of my input. I joined, and am bookmarking wikicreole. |
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| -- JimGettman, 2007-02-21 |
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