Re-vamped help pages
Baldy
Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
We're here for you, Papajay. 
Actually, I've been calling many subscribers and also some of the 5.5 million unique visitors we get a month to see what's good and what's not. Readability came up a lot.
This better?
http://www.smugmug.com/help/video-sharing
You'll notice that all the help pages now have that look and feel.
I'm astounded at what we're learning about how the site is used. One guy I called always has his laptop with SmugMug on it while he watches the evening news, nature shows, etc., so he can search for photos about what they're saying. No, he's not creepy and his searches are for places like Key West and La Paz.
Actually, I've been calling many subscribers and also some of the 5.5 million unique visitors we get a month to see what's good and what's not. Readability came up a lot.
This better?
http://www.smugmug.com/help/video-sharing
You'll notice that all the help pages now have that look and feel.
I'm astounded at what we're learning about how the site is used. One guy I called always has his laptop with SmugMug on it while he watches the evening news, nature shows, etc., so he can search for photos about what they're saying. No, he's not creepy and his searches are for places like Key West and La Paz.
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I've just scratched the surface , of course (I've only looked at the opening "Help" screens from the Smugmug home page) but like the "visitor-targeted" pages very much! Now I can confidently point any new visitors and email share invitees to the SmugMug help instead of trying myself to explain how to visit and navigate my site. Thank You for "listening"....and ADDRESSING this.
Hopefully without sounding too much like the "old-school" curmudgeon I probably am (Andy Rooney, you're forgiven), the use of "hip", "cool", "twenty-something", "new age", "I-wish-I-were-a-better-texter" choice of language (word choice and look & feel) took some getting-used-to for folks of my generation (IMHO).
While it makes the reading of help screens more "interesting", it did not necessarily make them more easily understood. I'd encourage your help screen writers to remain mindfull of that...it takes us 60+'ers a little longer to bend our minds around some of this stuff to begin with, and when we have to learn TWO new languages ("tech-talk" AND "young-speak"), it takes even more bending.
If the newly updated help pages are indicitive of future revisions, I think they are much easier to read than in the past.
Example: beanland@email.smugmug.com .
Every email program I've seen uses attachments rather then the photo embedded in the body which someone might do.:D
Compose an email with photo as attachment to yournickname@email.smugmug.com.
Example: beanland@email.smugmug.com .
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Thanks, Allen!
By all means, if anyone else has any feedback on how to improve a specific help page, bring it on.
-Anne
The how to add a photo via email and phone page:
When you enter a password for this the screen does not return a confirmation and the dialog box showing the password you just entered is still there. the other settings give you a confirmation, might want to look at that to keep things consistant?
I would also mention somewhere that the formatting of the phones email might prevent this from working.
My Helio phone, has yahoo/gmail and reg pop3 email ability but I cannot change the format so none of the emails work for mobile uploads. My work around is to email my exchange server which inturn redirects the mail to smugmug and then it will add the image. Would be wonderful if the upload server could handle html/rich text instead of just plain.
This was a frustrating process to go through to find a working combination. Any non-tech person is just going to get mad or give up.
just my $0.02
So far I am really enjoying playing around here, even with the few gotchas.
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