Yesterday, I posted that perhaps we should encourage new users to spend more time in the live environment before they install. I suggested that we do this by means of a welcome application.

Generally, people seemed to like the idea of a welcome application – something to highlight Ubuntu’s abilities and to guide through common issues.

Here’s some mock ups that might show more of what I meant.

An introductory video is running [1] along with some short text explaining the application’s purpose [2]. Common tasks are listed [3]. What’s missing from this is two things – a close button and an install button. I’m not sure how to work this because I am trying to encourage it being run – I think a little install tab in the top right along with a small close button might work. I want to encourage not irritate.

The user is interested in getting online and has clicked on a link to get here. The application’s checked for available connections. In this case, there is a wireless connection available, so the context sensitive hyperlink [1] has linked a video/screencast [3] showing the user how to connect. With the failure to detect a wired connection, the context sensitive hyperlink links to a troubleshooting page. Successful connection has resulted in a notification [2] and triggered the “what now” box, guiding the user to what is now available.

I can see a number of issues:

• Videos and screen-casts have been requested from the doc-team for inclusion in the past but translation and localisation is an issue. I don’t spend a lot of time with screen-cast technology so I don’t know how easy it is to localize. Recording a new video for each release might be relatively straightforward if the tool chain is correctly configured.
• The feedback mechanism that would permit context sensitive hyper-links. I would like it to be as automated as possible.
• What to check, what to suggest and how to decide what tasks are most important for inclusion.
• Size – the Live CD is limited on space, video is large – how possible is this idea?

Of these, I think the size issue is the greatest. It might not be possible at all to have video or screen-casts but it should be possible to have room for images and text. It would also allow easier localisation.

Still – it’s just an idea. Oh and thanks to Pencil – rather impressive OSS mock up software.