Re: [orca-list] Help write Orca docs

[Krishnakant <hackingkk gmail com>]

On Mon, 2009-09-21 at 12:43 -0400, Willie Walker wrote:
> Hi All:
> HI Wil.
> I need some help with documentation.
>
> Each new Orca user usually ends up asking similar questions, some of 
> them more general to GNOME (e.g., "what e-mail clients work", "how do I 
> switch between windows using the keyboard") and others more specific to 
> Orca (e.g., "What is the keyboard command for x").
> Agreed.
I keep getting these questions commonly.
Infact all of the above questions had been a big concern to a group of
trainners in my recent workshop in Malaysia  And I think they are right
in their way.

> What I'm looking for is adjusting the documentation to help the brand 
> new user quickly get up and running with GNOME and Orca.  Right now, 
> some users come into Orca with the preconceived notion that Orca is JAWS 
> for GNOME.  This flawed assumption immediately builds a foundation for 
> failure.
Exactly.

> So, I want help.  Recalling from your experiences with getting started 
> with Orca, I'm curious about:
>
> 1) Where did you expect to find documentation (e.g., somewhere on the 
> web, built in to the desktop, etc.)?
> I would recommend having it built-in with the desktop.
Imagine for example, I go to rural parts of India and recently been
invited to some rural areas in other developing countries.   I have seen
that internet is not always available to such users.
> 2) What is missing from the documentation or difficult to find that 
> would have made it a lot easier to get started with Orca and GNOME?
> That's an interesting question.  Personally I feel that nothing as such is missing seriously.
What is missing is a good structure of the manual.
We can easily anticipate what a user generally likes to read.  We can
easily understand this by looking at how user learned to use other
screen readers.
> 3) What stuff in the documentation is misleading or confusing?
>
> 4) Can you help write the docs?  I'm looking for one or two good writers 
> than can donate some time to the project.
> If its a wiki, I would like to help out.  But again my strong suggestion is to have an off-line copy of the 
> manual into the desktop or orca itself.

> An example of success from this documentation effort would be enabling a 
> user on Windows to migrate quickly to the GNOME platform with Orca.

You can even write to mee off-list so that we can discuss.
I tryed making audio tutorials but seems that people like to read more
than listen.
So having textual manuals seems to be the way to go.

Happy hacking.
Krishnakant.