Live Help, rollovers, click on things, etc "?" Mode.

[deeds]

Inline Help. Touch something to see what it does, its nomenclature and then read about the intentions and ambitions of the developers.

 

One thing that makes software somewhat understandable is a naming convention for all that it does. But it’s only understandable once the foundations of how to think about how the designers and developers responsible for an app thought about what they were making.

 

Which is the inverse of helpful. Once you master something you know it. Already. 

 

But getting to know something as complex as an alternative drawing program is a bit of a hill climb. Not because it’s a mountain, it’s not. It just takes time that most people simply don’t have. Recreational hill climbing simply isn’t on most people’s lists, so they hop back on the Adobe treadmill they know, despite realisation that it’s not going to get them anywhere near as fast as actually learning to walk up a hill.

 

So the path to success for Affinity Designer is making the interface, operability, features, functions and paradigms of AD as intuitive and innate (and memorable) as soon is possible for any new user.

 

That’s probably best done with one of those “?” buttons that activates a special mode whereby the user can click on anything and learn more about it.

 

BUT… not in the limited manner these things have been done before, please, if you consider this, add some of these things:

 

• A lexicon/nomenclature descriptive passage of what and how this thing that’s been clicked on came to be named, and make this a link, so the user can then click on these words and goto more content specifically about these things as seen through the eyes of the AD creators.
• A quick “how to” and “WHY” and WHAT FOR!!! passage about this thing, whatever it is.
• Links to any further information about this thing that might be of use. Videos, tutorials, help files, related features, etc All in little categories, so that they know what they’re going to be clicking on.
• SUPER IDEAL: program a little animated demo of the thing doing its magic. 

 

I know. I’m asking a lot. But some thought has to go into how to make AD have affinity with the designers of the world, en masse. It has the guts to do it, it’s just a matter of putting on a good face, now.

 

 

[retrograde]

This could perhaps be a preference toggle to help beginners, allowing a mouse hover over a tool or part of the UI to have a pop up that gives a very brief description of what it is with maybe a clickable link to the help manual...?

 

Blender has something like this but without a link, just a description. It's a preference you can turn on or off.