Talking with kittykat on IRC, made me realize that there might be a need to give the GNOME Documentation more exposure than it currently has. From what I have read on the internet, there haven’t been any comment or feedback on the documentation and I think that is a shame.

It kinda makes sense why there hasn’t to me though. What do you think when you hear “Digital Documentation”? This is what comes to mind for me:

Source: DREW University, Introduction to Windows 98

Good old Windows 98. Every time I opened Windows Help, I sure never did find what I was looking for. It has essentially lowered my expectations for getting offline help at all (whether this is true for anyone else is beyond my knowledge though). Which is quite problematic, because just look at that GNOME Help. It’s a true beauty and we have a whole docs team working hard on it.

How can we help it?

I see two things that can be done here. First of all, I think it is important that the apps which the documentation team writes documentation for, need to show their gratitude once in a while. When a user is praising an app he is praising the whole experience, including the work that GNOME Design has done and what the Docs team has done and any libraries that may lay ground for the apps existence. Saying thanks can be easy to forget, but hopefully we can help each other remember.

Now, the second way we can improve the visibility of our documentation I think, could be through communication performed by GNOME Engagement. It could be an article published on the GNOME frontpage and spread through social media, centering on Help as a tool for users to discover how to use GNOME. More ambitiously, it could be a minute-long video with a visualising the role of Help as a component in the gnomiverse, and how you can use it as a tool to get started with a new app. Again, the video should be promoted through social media to ensure that it reaches some users.

Sounds like I should go back to the drawing table now and look into opportunities for this. Feedback and comments are welcome!