A Gentle Critique re: Tutorials
I'm fairly new to ProFantasy mapping software. I like it so far. I can see the possibilities and I definitely appreciate the power inherent in the software.
I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this, but for such a robust and multi-optional system, the tutorials and helps are frustrating. They convey information, but there seems to be a near-universal disregard for organizing it in ways that are sequential (bits of information building on each other), targeted (relating to the topic at hand), and appropriately limited (digestible to a newcomer in pace and quantity without swamping them).
The result is having to spend as much time negotiating how to navigate the tutorial itself as learning how to navigate the application. The tutorials do a great job of explaining how conceptually ProFantasy products are different and how to prepare your mind to understand them, but a wretched job in actually instructing you how to get from Step 1 to Step 6.
Some basic things that would help:
--When negotiating the relationship between the reader/operator and the software, start from the perspective of the reader/operator and lead them to the software rather than starting from the perspective of the software and dumping it on the reader/operator. For instance, very quickly in the basic CC3+ tutorial we get a massive list of what an entire bank of small buttons do without needing to use said buttons or even knowing what purpose they serve in the mapping process. This happens, I think, because the author wants to present this category of buttons in its entirety, as the software itself lumps them together. But without context or actually using them, we can't understand the explanation and can't retain most of the info. It's a bit like reading a 92-page backstory of a fantasy world with a million proper names without ever being introduced to the actual world or the people in it. It's good to know that you, the author, know what's behind all this, but the reader can't process that or figure out why they should care about the 1st-5th inter-dwarven wars if they've never met an actual dwarf in the story. Similarly we can't process or remember what 16 buttons do before we've used a single one of them.
--Explaining one thing well is better than explaining multiple things poorly. One subsection should equal one task. And we should learn primarily through active tasks and concrete instructions, not theoretical categorizing and reading. If it doesn't fit this lesson, leave it for another one.
--When describing steps, either state or give access to the micro-actions needed to complete those steps. It's common in the tutorials to see: 1. Open this example. 2. Make sure your foozle is freeborked in the task bar. 3. Press this button. 4. Do the jujuwazzo. Step 1 is easy if you've done a few tutorial sections. But what is a foozle? Freeborking? Wait, that was Step 15, three tutorials ago. I already had to process a dozen other things in that prior tutorial. You assumed I picked it up from that one instance, but I didn't. Yet you don't re-explain the steps to foozling here. Or where to find the freebork line. And where's the task bar? (That was with 500 other pieces of information in Section 1, Lesson 1.) Which side of the page is the button in Step 3 on? Am I even on the right overlay? And now I've just spent 25 minutes trying to search for details that you easily could have listed. By this time I've lost track of the jujuwazzo-ing we were supposed to be doing in the first place. This lesson could have taken less that 5 minutes and driven the point straight home if you didn't assume I had information that comes naturally to you, the experienced user, but is still new to me.
--For the love of God, why can't there be hyperlinks to the pertinent sections that these steps cover? If you already assume I'm supposed to understand Button X that does Function Y, hyperlink me back to the part of the document that covers those things just in case. That would solve half of the issue.
--If you are making a video tutorial, keep the scope limited, detail steps and the things you clicked to access them, and go slow. I've watched several 20 minute omnibus "tutorials" that casually rapid-fire terms that I don't yet have a grasp on, with the cursor clicking buttons so quickly that I have to rewind and put my face half an eyelash from the screen to see where they clicked, with the main action and descriptions moving so fast you'd swear the presenter had six Monsters in his tummy and a gun to his head like this was the bus from Speed. How about three-minute videos covering a single concept? How about repeating things in the early parts of the series like, "Remember to use this button to change scale," or, "I'm moving to the lower right part of the screen to turn off the grid snapping."
--In every tutorial, make the steps build on each other. Go over them sequentially, even if that requires repeating. "Here's how to make a polygon. Here's how to make a fractal one. Practice that. Now make a big fractal one. That's your base ground. Make two or three smaller smooth ones on top of the big one. With a little imagination you can see that you've just set the table for your initial land mass, plus areas for hills, water, and forest. Don't worry that they're not colored yet. In the next tutorial we're going to teach you how to fill those in for different types of terrain. For now just remember everything starts with polygons. Build the largest one at the base, smaller areas on top of it, and you're on your way!" (Next Tutorial: "Remember making the basic polygons? If you forgot, here are the exact button clicks and locations. Now we're going to teach you how to add a property to those polygons: color.")
I could go on, but you get the idea.
The end result is, it's apparent that tutorial creators think they have conveyed information when they dump 60,000 gallons of milk (software structure, definitions, and conventions) into a standard drinking glass (the new reader-operator's mind). They haven't. It doesn't matter at that point if that's the freshest, richest milk in the world. Most of it spilled out onto the floor, leaving the reader to mop up while the tutorial creator merrily plays with the mapping software he already knows how to use. And repeating the process by reading the tutorial again only perpetuates the mess.
This is not a critique of the scope or complexity of the system. I like those 60,000 gallons! The milk looks great! But the teaching process around this system is almost universally careless and questionable from what I've seen.
To put my money where my mouth is, I promise that if I ever get conversant enough to negotiate the software well, I'll try to do a tutorial "for dummies". Until then, I guess I'll invest in a warehouse full of mops and buckets.
Comments
Thanks for the detailed feedback DaveD. We'll keep that in mind as we develop future documentation.