[pmwiki-users] More Better Documentation . . .

[John Rankin]

On Wednesday, 24 May 2006 10:04 AM, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
>On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 12:08:40AM -0500, Ben Wilson wrote:
>> I see there is PmWikiFeatures. Still needs to be plastered on the
>> front page. :-)
>
>Ideally I'd like to see a better-reading Features page, and then a
>link to that from the www.pmwiki.org main page.
>
>Pm
>
>
I can take a shot at this over the next few days -- I agree with the
comments that the software has raced ahead of the documentation and
it's a good time for a breather so the documentation can catch up.

Some thoughts:

- everything on the current page is interesting and useful, but...

- if this is a link from the home page, then readers are perhaps
  more interested in *benefits* than in features (WIIFM? [1])

- a page structure that's person-centric rather than pmwiki-centric
  could be more informative and persuasive

- I envisage several "personas", setting out the kinds of things
  they want to do and how pmwiki makes it easy for them [2]

- it will probably turn into several linked pages, with enough
  of a teaser on the introductory page that different audiences
  will follow a link to a page that is particularly relevant to
  their needs (eg writers, readers, administrators)

- for the introductory page, shorter is better (it shouldn't
  try to cover everything) -- the approach I used for the
  EditGettingStarted (IntroductionToMarkup) page

First question: who are the target audiences for the 
PmWikiFeatures page? 

-- 
JR
--
John Rankin

[1] What's in it for me?

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personas