Forum .LRN Q&A: Advice on Writing Tutorials (Forum)

I'm finding that my new .lrn users are using the Forums mostly for spamming, so I've taken to preparing little tutorials on other uses.  Here's one I've written showing how to add a link and commentary that also draws out the nifty .lrn feature of making such links "hot".  It would be just great to hear suggestions for improvement as well as to learn who else has busied themselves writing such things.  Here's the link: http://home.arcor.de/civici01a/programming/tutorials/Adding%20Links%20to%20the%20Forums.pdf

I should also say that I'm quite happy to have been asked to Chair the User Advisory Board as it gives sanction to my curiousity about what others are doing!  And since Al has just announced it on the Forum, I'd guess it appropriate now to ask the more general question of whether others might find this way of walking through user experiences, and comparing the ways we walk through them, to provide a helpful basis for considering the improvement of the .LRN user interface and to ask what better ways there might be to do so.

Also, since I'm new at this, I'm looking for advice on how to think about users.  I've started reading Mike Kuniavsky's book, "Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research," and find it very helpful.  Might others have recommendations they might want to share?

Thanks!

Bruce Spear

It's a fine guidance for the audience of end users, that also sets a measure for what can be explained to beginners. I would have been tempted to give much more detailed advice about the various difficulties encountered when working with the forum in its present shape, e. g., spoilt line breaks, resume editing that was interrupted by session timeout, and posting indentation peculiarities affected by long urls.

But you are right, this would be too much, and therefore the usage problems must be solved rather than described.

Furthermore, the link collection scenario is a good example for the forums usage pattern that does not just substitute a listserv list distributing to mailboxes. I am very curious to get to know how your end users at other sites follow this usage pattern and what you recommend them to control their alerts.  As soon as they discover that they can read the entire content within their mailboxes, they might switch back to the simple spamming style of discussion, right?

I therefore think that some recommendations are needed regarding  notifications/alerts, and that perhaps some functionality should  be changed if it turns out that the unsatisfactory usage  patterns that Bruce mentions are a common problem.

I am also looking forward to UAB work to address these usability problems.