Hi Jens,
I took a look at one of the documents you sent. Coming from an
academic background as an engineer, I spent a lot of time in my early
days using expensive pieces of equipment with thick user manuals.It
was not always clear to me why. I think what you have started to
write is more of a practical laboratory exercise manual. Right now,
what we have is a basic operators manual (What button do I press to
use this mass spectrometer?) , but it says nothing about how to
interpret the results, or how to use it to solve a particular
problem.
Personally, I think we may need to go a lot further, and specify why
certain graphs/reports need to look the way they do. Why use a
choropleth map at all? What is the significance of such an output and
when should it be used? Which output do we need to answer a given
question in the most effective way? A map? A table? Some other type
of
report? These questions are far from clear from either the user
manual
or the document you have shared.
I have long been a critic of the approach of "give them a Pivot Table
and it will solve all of their problems". It has not worked in
several
places I have been and part of the reason is that people who need to
look at the data do not always know necessarily how data should be
visualized. They may be capable in interpreting "canned reports" or
dashboards which have been created by people familiar with data
visualization techniques and M&E, but may not be capable of creating
them themselves. I think what you have started is a sorely need
end-user training manual and exercise book. I peursonally think that
the use of the sample data set, where possible, would be ideal, as it
would allow standardized training materials to be developed. And of
course (and you knew I was going to say this) I think it should be
written in DocBook and committed to the documentation branch.
Creating
Word, HTML and PDF is simple from DocBook but not the other way
around.
Just a few thoughts.
Good work. Keep it up.
Best regards,
Jason
2011/6/10 Jens Johan Kaasbøll
Obviously no success. Use the web links below instead
On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:38:23 +0200, Jens Johan Kaasbøll wrote:
Seems like the attachments did not come through, even if they are
in
my Sent box. Strange. Try again.
During discussions on user learning in Tanzania, two issues came up.
First, users struggle with finding out how to generate reports for
their health management tasks. Second, many are confused as to
aspects
of the overall structure of the HMIS, including both health
information and DHIS.
Problems of coupling the DHIS functionality to health tasks may be
eased through changes in the user interface and documentation.
Pushing
the Reports choice under Services takes you to a page void of health
tasks. For instance, the explanation of Chart is
“View and add charts. Charts are based on indicators and either
organisation units or periods.”
If we rather start with health tasks, we could for example write:
“To get an overview of the facilities in your area for a health
service, choose Charts.”
Likewise, manuals and slides could also be designed based on health
tasks, see attached drafts. These drafts also includes examples of
how
the structures, components, concepts and principles of DHIS and HMIS
could be presented. The drafts are for slides
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF3280/v11/ChartReportTestSlides.ppt
[3]
and for a document which is closer to a textbook than a manual.
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF3280/v11/ChartReportTestTextbook.doc
[4]
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF3280/v11/ChartReportTestTextbookAnnotated.pdf
[5]
Shorter versions could also appear as instructions on the right part
of the screen as context-sensitive help when running the DHIS,
possibly as videos.
Are there any opinions on these matters?
Is it worthwhile trying to design documentaiton in this way?
Managing documentation of the same thing for different media begs
for
a more systematic way of storing and generating it than the Office
files I produced. This is another, but related topic for discussion.
Regards,
Jens Kaasbøll
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