Should narrative bot be conversational, or step by step instructional?

feature
1

Consider making the instructions more step-by-step…

Some of the instructions can be difficult to parse as a non-Discourse user - making the instructions more step-by-step might also help non-native speakers follow along in addition to those who have trouble with instructions.

Some examples…

Quoting Instructions

Before

Select the text of whichever ↑ quote you prefer, and then press the Quote button that pops up over your selection – or the Reply button at the bottom of this post.

Below the quote, type a word or two about why you picked that one, because I’m curious :thinking:

After

  1. Select the text of whichever ↑ quote you prefer
  2. And then either:
  • Press the Quote button that pops up over your selection
  • Or the Reply button at the bottom of this post.
  1. Below the quote, type a word or two about why you picked that one, because I’m curious :thinking:

Quoting Not Found

Before

Hmm it looks like you didn’t quote me in your reply?

Selecting any text in my post will bring up the Quote button. And pressing Reply with any text selected will work, too!

After

Hmm it looks like you didn’t quote me in your reply?

Either:

  • Select any text to bring up the Quote button
  • Or: Pressing Reply with any text selected

Note I changed “Press the Quote button” etc to match “will bring up the Quote button” style consistently.

I know it’s not to everyone taste - but we are trying to cover the basics here and ensuring they, the new user you want sticking around to follow.

2 Likes
2

This feels very … speculative to me. If people are having trouble reading, I don’t think arbitrary rearrangement of text is going to help.

If something was missing from the text, I could see that, for sure.

3

Not arbitrary - bullets / numbers make it clear the number of steps involved and the options to choose from; this is unclear in the current text without reading the sentence multiple times to find out what you missed.

2 Likes
4

I simply do not agree in any way with your assessment here.

“Make everything a bulleted list” is terrible advice, across the board.

5

Have you sat next to / hovered over a user or played silent on the phone whilst someone else follows the @discobot ?

These are issues I have experienced following / listening to without interference from myself.

Absolutely not what I said.[quote=“DeanMarkTaylor, post:144, topic:58621”]
Consider making the instructions more step-by-step
[/quote]
Whilst…

is not the only solution, carefully placed new lines might also be a solution.

6

The bot is meant to be conversational, not a rote collection of bulleted steps. If that is what you prefer, you’ll need to customize the text locally for your site.

7

Clearly both conversational is possible whilst being instructional

conversational is always possible with phrasing of sentences around the instructions.

8

Imho the difference between discobot and the classic welcome message is exatly this one.

Welcome message is structured in lists and can be very usefull for technical forums for example (especially because you can add specific sections) . But honestly, for discussion sites, it is pretty boring if you have to read an endless list of things without doing anything only to learn how to use the forum.

Discobot is more friendly and teaches you only the basics steps to use Discourse properly, and especially requires an interaction with the user without being a boring teacher…

5 Likes
9

My impression is that the challenge is to get users to actually start the track, i.e. to read and respond to the first message. Once they do that, my impression is that the existing narrative works fine.