On 6 Dec 2010, at 07:56, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
Hi, What do people think of the little "Tip of the Day" windows that are in some software? Are they helpful? Annoying?
<delurk> Mostly annoying, except in software I don't know yet :)
I especially like ones that mix the usual newbie tips with a few gems, so that from time to time you'll go "ooooh, I didn't know that!", making it fun.
Either way, I made one in Pd.
Seems like this could be useful to beginners. And at the moment they're no longer useful one can just turn them off. (Or they could be turned off by default and live in the help window.)
Judging from my experience of looking at click logs and reading usability stuff, no newbie will turn them on (hence the importance of sensible defaults, the vast majority of users doesn't change anything when they're just starting). When they finally feel they can go around toggling things, perhaps they won't need it anymore, so I would say on by default, with an option to turn it off, like you say.
</delurk>
Cheers,
Pedro