[Tb] Re: Tantilizing

 Hi,

Quite a rush of activity. I like it.

I agree with much of what Garth, Andy, and Gabriel have said. Perhaps some comments from someone with less technical know-how would be useful addition.

Brief background:
I've been playing around with Tinderbox, off and on, for about 4 months. I'm a "user" with very little technical expertise. I teach and, amongst other things, am considering Tinderbox as a repository for my lecture notes.

A neophyte's lament:
Initially I was very pleased -- the outlining/explorer features seemed intuitive and I liked the different perspective given by the map view. With the help of the manual, I was able to get the hang of the link feature, but then my progress stopped.

It seemed to me that the power of TB had something to do with attributes and agents. Regarding these two features, I found the manual unhelpful. When I checked the old forum, three things struck me: (1) most contributers seemed technically savvy; (2) there was sense of community, and TB, some commonality of technical knowledge, and blogging seemed to be the glue that held the community; (3) there was a small group of users experiencing frustrations to myself.

I have had brief correspondence with Mark Bernstein. I found his responses prompt, polite, and felt he was more than willing to help. Most of what I've read suggests that my experience with Eastgate was typical -- their support staff have a fine reputation. If I had the time to make use of this service, my frustrations would be much diminished. Sadly, especially during term time, I'm too busy with other things.

A neophyte's prayer
A conventional forum would help because the structure is familiar, navigation is easier (there are no mystery tours), and they are less forbidding to use. Wikis may have advantages beyond counting, but they are not obvious at early stages in the learning process.
The first few sections of the manual are fine; about halfway through the Attributes section, things become increasingly cryptic, and this is the really important stuff. Eastgate could greatly improve the manual by inserting some examples (together with screenshots) illustrating the use of attributes and agents -- this would be a great opportunity to present some showcase examples that put TB through its paces.
The GettingStarted page has some illustrative material, but nothing that really brings it together. The nearest thing to to a rounded illustration is the TinderDo vignette posted by Gordon Meyer back in May of this year.
 
Some concluding thoughts:
I think that most TB users are happy with the present setup, and I wish them well.
I suspect I'm not part part of TB's target market. I think that the target user is someone with either more time or computer savvy than myself and probably with a penchant for blogging. I have no problem with this -- I should have worked it out before I paid the fee. However, I think that would-be users should be warned -- perhaps a minimum user requirements should accompany the hardware requirement :)

Jim Eden
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Received on Wed Dec 24 16:40:17 2003