BCHK suggests adding a “How to create a poll” link to the bottom of polls, directing users to instructions and code to copy and paste. This aims to educate non-technical users and increase poll usage.
Alternatively, erlend_sh proposes a graphical wizard for polls, accessible via a Poll-button in the editor. This would simplify the poll creation process.
codinghorror mentions a longer-term plan to introduce a “gear” icon in the toolbar for adding polls and other obscure editor features. This could be rolled up into a change to suppress more of the toolbar by default, as suggested by jesselperry.
downey suggests using the hamburger icon instead of the gear icon.
codinghorror announces that the gear icon for building polls is available in version 1.6.
We have about 2600 regular users on our forums and polls are popular - but lots of our non-technical users have problems with creating polls.
It would be really great if everytime someone created a poll, that Discourse recognized that it was a Poll - and appended a small link at the bottom of the poll that said something like “How to create a poll” - with a link to some simple instructions and code to copy and paste.
This would help educate people on how to create a poll (the interest on creating polls is most likely to be triggered when someone is looking at a poll).
This would greatly increase the use of, and reduce the problem our users have with, polls.
When dealing with non-technical users, I think it’s much better to go the pure UX route. Maybe you could entice someone to make a simple graphical wizard for polls, which would open on the click of a Poll-button added to the editor. After creating your poll in a graphical interface, you hit Done and it inserts the whole thing into your post.
Yeah the longer term plan is to have a “gear” icon in the toolbar which lets you do obscure editor stuff like add polls, etc.
I think we might suppress more of the toolbar by default though, as @jesselperry has suggested, so this kind of thing would be rolled up into that change.