Feature #15612

Improve "Tails documentation" browser

Added by sajolida 2018-05-22 13:06:46 . Updated 2018-07-06 09:00:20 .

Status:
Rejected
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
Start date:
2018-05-05
Due date:
% Done:

100%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Code
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Deliverable for:

Description

Since 4fba04a332, people get either the online or offline documentation when opening the “Tails documentation” launcher from the desktop.

When people get the offline documentation, I think that it should look as much as possible to the online documentation to obey the “Consistency and standards” UX heuristics: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/.

People are really used to navigate information from a browser and we should provide as much as the common navigation elements as the online documentation as possible.

Currently, the “Tails documentation” browser lacks the following navigation elements compared to the online documentation:

  • Sidebar: it is the only way we have for people to jump, for example, from /doc to /support.
  • Tabs: tabs are heavily used by millenials when exploring complex content: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/multi-tab-page-parking/.
  • Search: but this might be impossible to provide offline…
  • Banner which includes a link to our homepage: but we have another home link at the beginning of the breadcrumbs so it’s probably not that bad. Including the banner would further increase the similiarity between the offline and online version. Removing the banner in the offline doc allows for more space before the fold, on the other hand, the space taken by the banner should be good enough for online doc anyway.

Having the sidebar and tabs would have prevented navigation errors in the user testing that I did of the Additional Software beta.

Subtasks

Feature #15576: Add back the sidebar on the offline documentation browser Rejected

0
Feature #15577: Have tabs in the offline documentation browser Rejected

0

Related issues

Related to Tails - Feature #15720: Use Tor Browser for offline documentation and drop the documentation browser Resolved 2018-07-06

History

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2018-05-25 14:28:11

It’s not clear to me why this is a subtask of Bug #14962: as you’ve explained on Bug #14962#note-42, even if “Tails documentation” was perfect we would want to fix Bug #14962 at some point, and improving “Tails documentation” is not part of that. So I’d rather drop the parent task if you don’t mind. If you disagree, fine, whatever :)

#2 Updated by sajolida 2018-06-01 18:06:56

#3 Updated by sajolida 2018-06-19 17:05:19

During the user testing of the VeraCrypt beta we hit two weird glitches in the documentation browser:

  • P2 had missing images on the VeraCrypt documentation. Restarting the browser solved the problem.
  • P4 had broken hyperlinks on the VeraCrypt documentation. Restarting the browser solved the problem.

I don’t know how to reproduce these bugs but can provide screenshots or videoclips if needed.

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2018-07-03 20:53:06

FTR, now that Bug #14962 is going to be fixed, it’s not obvious to me that we should keep the “Tails documentation” browser and spend time on making it more usable.

#5 Updated by sajolida 2018-07-05 15:58:37

  • Status changed from Confirmed to Rejected

It’s clear to me that we should switch back to using Tor Browser for offline documentation and drop the documentation browser.

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2018-07-06 08:53:21

  • related to Feature #15720: Use Tor Browser for offline documentation and drop the documentation browser added

#7 Updated by intrigeri 2018-07-06 09:00:20

> It’s clear to me that we should switch back to using Tor Browser for offline documentation and drop the documentation browser.

Thanks! I’ve thus filed Feature #15720 for that (Bug #14962 is too messy so I’ll leave it alone to track the root cause of the problem). I’ll try to do it as part of Feature #15023 in time for 3.9 but I can’t promise I’ll succeed.