The steepest part of the learning curve is right at the start
My working life revolves pretty much around Microsoft. Over 90% of my work is done in either SharePoint or Word.
Microsoft has a lot of information on their sites about these products. Unfortunately, I can never find it. I usually only know it’s there when I stumble on it months after I really needed to know it.
Their sites look good, and once I know what I am doing I can see that it also contains truly valuable information. The only problem is, when I don’t know what I am doing I have no idea how to actually use the information that is there.
The steepest part of the learning curve is at the start.
I really struggled with SharePoint until I learned one simple basic fact. There are two programs. Until I grasped that there were two programs, that one sat on top of the other, and that they both did slightly different things, I was forever trying to do things that wouldn’t work. For example, I read in the SharePoint Help, and in online forums, about how you could set document or list level security. I was using SPS 2003, and I tried and tried, and I could never do it. Because you couldn’t, in SPS 2003. All the instructions were for WSS, but because I had not yet grasped the two-program thing, I thought they were just talking about SharePoint as a whole.
Likewise with another program I use occasionally—DITA. DITA is an xml schema used for writing documentation. I’m fine with the concept of a schema. I know quite a lot about DITA now, and can write pretty much anything using DITA schemas now if I want to. But have you ever tried to set a DITA system up on your own PC? The DITA Open Toolkit gives you good information. They even tell you how to set it up and give you the files to download. Even so, I am still on that slipperly steep slope right at the start—how do I set it up on my system, what do I need to do to make it work?
A total beginner has different information needs to an experienced user. The experienced user needs exact technical detail about specific items. Point them to the right place and if it’s organised in any logical sequence they will find what they need.
The beginner doesn’t know the information exists, they don’t know where to look and they don’t even know what to look for. They need big picture stuff, but the things that trip them up are not even always about the system itself. With DITA, for me, it was setting DITA up to use. With SharePoint I knew more than enough about libraries and lists before I had any real knowledge of how to use them in the business. And, as I said, the two program thing was a big knowledge hurdle.
Comments (4 comments)
I couldn’t agree with you more about the hurdles that surround installing the DITA Open Toolkit. One thing that makes first time use MUCH easier is to choose the “fullpackage” version, which sets up all the tools you need to use in one (large) zip file.
I created a simple-to-remember web page that outlines the various packages and explains clearly (I hope) how to access those you are interested in. It is just one jump page for now, but that is its whole purpose. Let me know if any of the explanations could be improved:
http://ditaopentoolkit.org
Ah, one thing I just caught is that even the fullpackage version requires Java in order to run it. I’ll have to add a small blurb about that prereq.
–Don Day
Don Day / January 28th, 2008, 2:15 pm / #
Thanks for the link Don. This is exactly the sort of information a beginner needs.
Even simple things, like the difference between dowloading a “.zip” and a “tar.gz” file. (It’s been a while now, but I still remember just how confused I got when I downloaded my first ‘tar.gz’ file and had no idea what to do with it).
CabSav / January 29th, 2008, 5:34 pm / #
I get frustrated myself when a product’s documentation isn’t clear. That’s when I turn to Google and search for the problem or question I have. It’s amazing the helpful tips that people put on their sites/blogs.
Ben / April 15th, 2008, 8:42 am / #
I absolutely agree with you about how helpful people can be on the web. There are so many times I would have been totally lost without their help.
CabSav / April 17th, 2008, 4:07 pm / #
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