There is a lot of power in learning the shortcuts for this workflow, but the README documentation has grown too cumbersome to expect anyone new to the workflow to read all the way through. I reorganized it a bit for the 0.6.0 release but it's still a lot of text and screenshots.
I would like to make the workflow accessible to more people. Unfortunately without analytics I have no way to gauge how many users are "hunting and pecking" menu items versus typing everything quickly like a pro. To be clear, development is continuing on workflow features and any instructional improvements would be a side project.
Questions
Where are you on the spectrum from just learning the workflow to confident power user?
What was most helpful on your path to becoming a power user, the README or in-workflow menus?
Options
Let's discuss the following options. Please share any ideas that would help you learn more about the workflow.
Web site with animated examples
Animations work well to show the features of the workflow and to compare
GIFs
Screencast GIFs are not particularly difficult to produce but they are annoying to maintain. An addition to the workflow could mean recording many of the GIFs again. Here's a hint: take a look at the only animated GIF in the README, it's outdated so I certainly would fail at maintaining a whole collection of GIFs.
JS component
This would require a more significant time investment up-front but a component capable of animating Alfred results would be very useful. The animation would run through a data source made up of the text that has been typed and the corresponding JSON output data from the workflow, showing the results as they would appear in Alfred. It would not be running the workflow or emulating Alfred in the browser, just displaying based on the exported workflow responses.
It would be trivial to make a script that automatically updates the animation data sources from a set of commands based on the latest version of the workflow. This would also make it easier to support examples for other languages and locales since I would not be manually interacting with Alfred in a non-native language.
Risks
README would not be able to show the examples but it would be easier to record and maintain GIFs of the animation than of me using the workflow
How to model user interaction like clicking a result
Benefits
An open source visualization would be useful for other workflow developers as well
Certain dates could be adjusted relative to the current date for better today/tomorrow examples
Makes it easier to spot problems in a release
Short videos
Individual features and power user tips could be presented as a YouTube playlist of very short (30-60s) videos.
Risks
Language barrier
YouTube does not allow videos to be updated (main reason they would be short and focused)
Embedding videos into documentation would be somewhat kludgy
Benefits
Videos are more discoverable and can reach a wider audience more easily
Some people prefer to listen and watch rather than read
There is a lot of power in learning the shortcuts for this workflow, but the README documentation has grown too cumbersome to expect anyone new to the workflow to read all the way through. I reorganized it a bit for the 0.6.0 release but it's still a lot of text and screenshots.
I would like to make the workflow accessible to more people. Unfortunately without analytics I have no way to gauge how many users are "hunting and pecking" menu items versus typing everything quickly like a pro. To be clear, development is continuing on workflow features and any instructional improvements would be a side project.
Questions
Options
Let's discuss the following options. Please share any ideas that would help you learn more about the workflow.
Web site with animated examples
Animations work well to show the features of the workflow and to compare
GIFs
Screencast GIFs are not particularly difficult to produce but they are annoying to maintain. An addition to the workflow could mean recording many of the GIFs again. Here's a hint: take a look at the only animated GIF in the README, it's outdated so I certainly would fail at maintaining a whole collection of GIFs.
JS component
This would require a more significant time investment up-front but a component capable of animating Alfred results would be very useful. The animation would run through a data source made up of the text that has been typed and the corresponding JSON output data from the workflow, showing the results as they would appear in Alfred. It would not be running the workflow or emulating Alfred in the browser, just displaying based on the exported workflow responses.
It would be trivial to make a script that automatically updates the animation data sources from a set of commands based on the latest version of the workflow. This would also make it easier to support examples for other languages and locales since I would not be manually interacting with Alfred in a non-native language.
Risks
Benefits
Short videos
Individual features and power user tips could be presented as a YouTube playlist of very short (30-60s) videos.
Risks
Benefits