Improving the First Time User (Newbie) Experience

[DGF]

MODERATOR NOTE: Posts were moved to this new thread to more closely reflect the topic discussion change from this thread
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Ron and Christopher - thanks so much for your messages - they really exemplify the sense of camaraderie and support present on the forum.

On a personal level, both replies are very informative and to read of your own experiences firsthand is particularly motivational – “keep plugging away” is what I’m hearing! I’m also detecting a hint of stubbornness in both of you that shows up as “I’m not going to let this beat me!” – highly commendable!

Maybe I’m flogging a very dead horse here, but I still feel that creating a functional ML implementation doesn’t have to be a war of attrition. I’ve spent a lot of time on the forum and there is an underlying theme of frustration exhibited by many posters as they attempt to get to grips with the ML components. A large number of people make one or two posts and then drop off the radar, presumably never to return. There is clearly a piece of the puzzle missing.

I presume Cinemar tracks the conversion rates of each phase of their sales cycle – as suspects turn into prospects, and then into paying customers - I would hazard a guess that the drop-off rate is pretty high, and that a large percentage of the casualties are due to what is being labeled as “the learning curve.”

Again, I’m not 100% sure what the answer actually is, but the creation of a series of short ‘YouTube’-style tutorials that hits some of the more fundamental topics (button creation/manipulation, simple command/macro creation, use of layers, basic screen navigation, etc.) would be a great place to start.

Ron, it was especially pleasing to hear from you – as one of the forum’s “celebrities,” I’ve really enjoyed the ML designs you’ve shared in the User Gallery section. Contributors in the gallery are actually a very small and select group of people – the skill and artistry demonstrated by some of the posters is actually a little intimidating! There are already some great examples on the forum of people sharing their knowledge, but these are scattered all over the place and sometimes nebulously labeled – making them challenging to consistently locate. Maybe it would be worth encouraging the posting of smaller pieces of an installation. How about a “module of the month” section? – A specific topic or functionality is chosen, and forum members get the opportunity to post their solutions (and questions).

Getting a larger group of people enrolled and engaged has got to be a good thing.


Dave

[ronsatter]

Thanks for the compliment, Dave.

There are already some great examples on the forum of people sharing their knowledge, but these are scattered all over the place and sometimes nebulously labeled – making them challenging to consistently locate. Maybe it would be worth encouraging the posting of smaller pieces of an installation. How about a “module of the month” section? – A specific topic or functionality is chosen, and forum members get the opportunity to post their solutions (and questions).

I like your idea. If the modules were done according to skill level, beginner, intermediate, advanced ... users could pick a project suitable to their comfort level. There's nothing like a "hands-on" project to get people excited about ML. After all, that's the attraction. And one thing is certain ... the more you buid and experiment ... the more product you buy! Mario, are you with us here?

I agree with you about with the lack of tutorials on ML basics. I put one together on "Scene Layering", which seems to have been helpful to many users. Some suggestions for simple tutorials would be a good place to start.

We're a happy little family here in ML land. Welcome to the party.

Ron

[cadillackid]

I think beginners guides as well as a more organized mannewr and explanations for commands would be great...

MLServe commands are decidedly intimidating for the beginner.. in fact I still learn new things about the command structure all the time....

so it would be neat to have some sort of searchable and indexable repository for such...

simple example scenes with standard buttons and command examples people could put to real use...

category: Lighting

command to turn a light on or off using homeseer
command to turn a light on or off using x10 direct with ML.. etc

category: misc

how to blink text
how to make text change color based on state..

and on and on it could go..

MLServe commands require specific syntaxes that confuse the heck out of many.. whyen to use a pipe.. when to use a curly bracket vs a double curly bracket etc...when to use a tilda... when its an mlservecmd vs an mlcmd, etc

there are mlservecmd examples scattered all over this forum and all over the wiki but really how to find one that does what you want? unless you want to scour its pretty tough to do... not to mention the wiki that has out of date examples and commands in it...

as well some sort of repositiry where people might want to share their buttons as well... i realize people put lots of hard work into their artwork and not everyone is going to want to share.. but some may and a place to host them and download them would be great!

to this day my HA system has been more utilitarian as opposed to 'pretty'.. my main claim to fame is that I can make things work and do a great job at it.. so my HVAC system will rival that of many commercial buildings.. my computer network easily as complex (and more reliable) than that of most small businesses... I dont have a wife i have to please.. i have a roomate who is decidedly an old fuddy duddy.. who has no use for HA whatsoever.. "I got two legs when i want a light on i'll turn it on with a switch!".. so the system is mine to do whatever i want with..

now that I have things working more or less the way i want them to now I can concentrate on the look pretty part..

im a telecom / network engineer and when I first started with ML I almost found it overwhelming.. but like another post stated it became a challenge for me to learn it, use it, and make it do what i want...

my HVAC has been more of a challenge and so I figure if I can do that then i can do this...

born was that dream I said to my mom and grandma back when I was 12 years old (in 1981!!).. "someday im gonna have a house... and its gonna have andersen wood windows.. and computer screens in the walls where you can turn stuff on and off and see the weather radar like channel 10 has. and I can turn the air conditioning on in my room when im hot and mom can still have her windows open"....

so I guess that stuck in my head.. and im sure back then I had watched way too much jetsons and star trek... along with a mother who refused to turn on the central air until it got deathly hot and humid outside....the andersen windows?? guess that was grandmas influence as she told me they were the best made.... but honestly its here now and it works.....

-Christopher

P.S. another thought came to mind.. and is that ML perhaps was never intended to be released to the public to build your own scenes?? that perhaps the original cinemar vision might have been to sell a complete home theatre integration... scenes, modules to control your hardware ,etc.. you just add movies and go..

from everything ive read ML original intent was not HA but was for home theatre... the Homeseer plugin brought forth a very real possibility that ML could function as a front end GUI for an HA system as well... and then born the fact ML can now control many pieces of hardware on its own... and the fact people buy the components to build your own system...

[mcascio]

Great discussion guys...keep it coming.

As DGF touched on. There's always room for improvement when it comes to converting first time users. We've been known for having a learning curve - which is somewhat understandable when it comes to a software as configurable as ours that doesn't require you to use their own proprietary hardware. Unless the user is absolutely intent on accomplishing their goals, they may never get over the first hurdles. So it's great to learn and understand what those hurdles are. We've been slowly knocking them down but there's plenty more to do.

We have been working on a generation 2 set of 0019 scenes for quite some time. These scene currently rely heavily on MLCycleStates and helps to organize everything in a central location. The MLCycleStates plugin allow users to define their Media Zones, Lighting Zones, Thermostat Zones, Security Zones, etc. This dynamically populates the interface for the users. We plan to ship the standard pages with a list view of rooms. We realize the floorplan looks great, but this is one of those first hurdles that a user will encounter on the interface side. So a list view will given them a working solution right out of the box. We do plan to document heavily these next set of scenes and the concepts behind them. We plan to document our thought process of defining the different zones which will be helpful in the early design process.

One of the other biggest hurdles is obviously the syntax. Dave and I have been working on a client side Command Builder using wizard like drop downs. This is huge!!! Users will be able to click the wizard button and select a plugin to reveal all available methods and parameters. Sample commands and syntax are shown right there. Eliminating the need for the user to visit the wiki and do a search for the specific plugin.

With all these things in place, I think first time users will encounter a different experience than they do today.

I think our wiki workshops are probably very valuable. So perhaps we can expand on them and even include a video capture of the workshop.

I think for the next major release, we can move MLSERVER into the Cinemar folder. This will bring everything into a central folder at least. To address DGF's question about the layers button. Layers refer to the objects on the page/scene. FX Layers are actual scenes that are stacked on scene.

We welcome these comments and suggestions. It's very constructive feedback and will only help Cinemar. We appreciate everyone taking time out of their day to even post to this section.

cadillackid is a great example of where our scenes create a challenge. Since none of our base scenes ship out preprogrammed to work with the MLHSPlugin. It would be virtually impossible to do so since the variables are dynamically changing. So until we can get some type of standard, I'm not sure how we'll tackle that one. We have ideas internally about how to have a single interface that can communicate with various manufacturers, but even that is going to take considerable resources to accomplish. But at least we're heading there. Cadillackid also touched on the fact that MainLobby has evolved to much more than was originally envisioned. Which means in some cases you have to take shortcuts because the ground work wasn't initally layed out in a clear plan. We're constantly adding functionality upon user request, but adding these options can often add more and more complexity and configuration to the product. But in the end, it gives the user the capability to do whatever they desire from a single glorified user interface.

So to summarize, here's where I think we are headed based on feedback from this thread:
* Drop Down Command Wizard (in progress)
* Centralize everything to install to a Cinemar folder
* Prepare a high level document that helps users organize their thoughts before touching the computer (planned for but difficult given the different hardware/software options and various configurations) but we can provide our recommendations
* Video Tutorials
* More Workshops
* Workshop/Module of the Month contributed by users

Anything else?

[DGF]

Wow! I'm blown away! Where else would you see an immediate response from the "Big Guy" detailing an action plan based on a forum discussion?!? Bravo!!

Unfortunately I hijacked Cairndhu1998's original thread, albeit with good intentions, so now the title no longer truly represents where the discussion actually headed. Given the potential impact of the topics on which Mario is asking for input, I wonder if the whole subject would be better served by extracting his last post and creating a separate and more visible thread?

One addition taken from the original thread that could possibly provide high leverage returns would be a more formalized mechanism to extract and categorize the many "nuggets" that are scattered throughout the forum, and place them in a central location. As a suggestion, this could take the form of a note to a moderator that a particular post has merits beyond the thread in which it originated - then on a periodic basis, all the highlighted candidates are evaluated, and if deemed to be of widespread applicability, labelled and posted to a sub-forum.

I'll be the first to ask Mario the #1 most predictable question: when?? Do you have tentative timelines for any of the pieces that are already in the pipeline?

I'm very excited by what I read is coming!!

[cairndhu1998]

Folks, I have been following all the activity my thread started. Fascinating! As a "Newbie" wondering whether to persevere (as, after all, I already invested a little in ML software but have not taken the hardware plunge mostly because ML seems so daunting).

As for this recent post comment: "Unfortunately I hijacked Cairndhu1998's original thread, albeit with good intentions, so now the title no longer truly represents where the discussion actually headed. Given the potential impact of the topics on which Mario is asking for input, I wonder if the whole subject would be better served by extracting his last post and creating a separate and more visible thread?"

I think that's an absolutely fabulous idea!

Cheers, Jim White

[mnkynifefite]

So to summarize, here's where I think we are headed based on feedback from this thread:
* Drop Down Command Wizard (in progress)
* Centralize everything to install to a Cinemar folder
* Prepare a high level document that helps users organize their thoughts before touching the computer (planned for but difficult given the different hardware/software options and various configurations) but we can provide our recommendations
* Video Tutorials
* More Workshops
* Workshop/Module of the Month contributed by users

Anything else?

Great discussion, and these are all great things. Ultimately some sort of "real" documentation needs to be developed. Wiki's are awesome at what they are for...referencing material...but are a poor substitute for linear or step-by-step training. Obviously there is no way to cover every "how to" situation, but some basics on CycleStates, button states, syntax, Layer loading/unloading, etc would go a long way to helping someone ramp up. I spent the better part of a year learning (and creating, then recreating, then recreating again my scenes as I learned more) but had there been more structured documentation and how-to's I could have saved some headaches.

I love the list of where ML is heading and the command wizard, in my opinion, is a game changer. If it is able recognize all the enabled plugins and be robust enough to access and use all the available variables and functions of those plugins...that would be just wow...I mean...WOW!

If I can add to the list , and I know this is no small request, it would be to snap out and increase the functionality of the Designer. I know this has been a topic of discussion for as long as I can remember (5 or 6 years). First off, it would make the client far more light weight and as you know, increase performance. Second, the current limited editing functionality is not only a stumbling block, but also adds a significant amount of time and complexity to creating/editing scenes. My wish list for the client-

* Store scenes as XML files
* Make client and designer two separate apps
* Ability to use alias or create custom name for objects that will display in the layers view <== Major PITA
* Be able to "import" or use local/custom fonts
* The ability to drag a box around layered objects to select them
* The ability to edit multiple objects at the same time (e.g.- color, label size, spacing, etc)
* Right-click support... menu options like copy/ cut/ paste/ duplicate, etc.
* Custom object catalog support...be able to create a library with custom SWF buttons
* Key stroke command shortcuts in edit mode
* Be able to group/ungroup objects <==This one is huge!
* More versatile color swatch selector, also the ability to add RGB value for colors (without editing MLS file)

I'm sure I'm missing several more, but I think these are the biggies.

My 2 cents.

[mnkynifefite]

Folks, I have been following all the activity my thread started. Fascinating! As a "Newbie" wondering whether to persevere (as, after all, I already invested a little in ML software but have not taken the hardware plunge mostly because ML seems so daunting).

As for this recent post comment: "Unfortunately I hijacked Cairndhu1998's original thread, albeit with good intentions, so now the title no longer truly represents where the discussion actually headed. Given the potential impact of the topics on which Mario is asking for input, I wonder if the whole subject would be better served by extracting his last post and creating a separate and more visible thread?"

I think that's an absolutely fabulous idea!

Cheers, Jim White

Jim,

Persevere. One day it will all click and you will be only limited by your imagination and time. I've been using ML since 2003, when it was a vastly different product then it is today. I "left" for a couple of years both for life-situation reasons and then testing the alternatives...you might as well hang in there as you will eventually find there are no other products or solutions out there that are ultimately as flexible and powerful as ML. We have an extremely wealthy family friend who has probably over $100,000 invested in a top of the line Crestron system (he practically has a programmer living in his home ) ...and it's capabilities (and "look and "feel") pale in comparison to what I can accomplish in ML. If you are serious about HA ML is the only solution to tie it all together in my opinion, especially if you don't want to be tied in to proprietary hardware/programming/etc.

[DaveB]

Mario and Dave;

Great job on the changes and improvements! Being around here for some time, it is very refreshing to me to see this. I will shortly post some good bits in the "Newbie" area. I have countless screen shots, macros and methods that I will organize and share. Now if we can just get Greg back on board!!

Really, keep up the great work!

[shakey]

It's great to hear what you all have going on and planned. It would be great to get a pipeline update about every month or so. I'm really excited about the command wizard. I do all my programing/ development from my laptop so this will be great, cause it doesn't have enough screen to have server, client and the wiki open at the same time. So I have printed copies of the various wiki plugins surrounding me so I can look up the commands and variables. This will make it faster and easier for first time user. Then before you know it the syntax starts make sense and your adding {{variables}} inside commands and {{variables}} made with variables.

Keep up the good work. Now Dave lock yourself in your basement and work away on those iPad scenes, but continue yor great support.

Shakey