(Sorry, folks, this got way too much TL, so DR if you know what’s good for you. Just Marco – you’re on the hook, 'cuz you asked! LOL!)
Hi @marco - There are a few levels here to consider. Bottom line: Yarbo is a COMPLEX product with some level of skill/knowledge required to install and use, and the more clear resources available the better, from documents to FAQs, all of it searchable and easy to find things. Folks want help, usually immediately, and post on social media to get a quick solution. Capturing that could provide help to others and lessen the burden on Support.
If you look at the FB posts, you’ll notice A LOT of information shared by a growing number of people who are gaining experience, with some technical folks chipping in to set us straight. Has Yarbo taken some of that information and distilled it into KB Articles? Or taken what is posted and made product corrections so the issue doesn’t happen anymore? If not, it’s a missed opportunity. (I have asked in a tech discussion if Yarbo takes that input for future improvement in the product, and the answer is YES, so that’s cool.)
So all this magical capturing of ideas for documentation and FAQs and distillation and all that is great, right? I am sure it is difficult and time-consuming to maintain those things. Documentation alone is a full time job. What if there were some people who were available to contribute to the KB, FAQs, or a Wiki? Yarbo already has volunteers to give product demos and help people set up. This could be another such a thing.
- KB Articles. These are essential and must remain simple, clear, and searchable. Some are outdated, incorrect, incomplete, and have formatting issues. There is sometimes a mix of 23 and 24 material. Nice lists of document titles, searchable – cool — and I think nicely laid out and presented. Breaking it up into modules with the same answers across modules because it applies to the core may be a little confusing and redundant. Eh, that’s the Editor’s problem. LOL! I reference the diagnostics description page all the time, but even that needs more clarity.
- FAQs. There are zero FAQs anywhere. How many times are we asked the same questions on Facebook and the Forum? Take my answers (corrected by @bryan.wheeler or some other smart person), cut the number of TL;DR words down, and make a FAQ. Who does it? Where does it live? I had pondered adding a FAQ as a document tied to one of the Facebook Groups.
- Forum Feature Summary List. Great stuff, needs to be clarified a bit, kept up to date with status, maybe include important bugs in addition to future features. I used to maintain the bug and feature databases for my software projects. Always clean as a whistle, searchable, clear, and distinct, with no duplicates. An effort to maintain.
- Wiki. I am assuming such an entity exists where you can create your own Wiki or it’s part of what the Forum infrastructure offers, but I don’t know, as I never looked into it. Typically a Wiki, which is basically a web site of informative articles, is maintained by a group of users (I assume authorized) who create, modify, approve, and patrol the content. I don’t know if it’s typical for a company like Yarbo to have its own Wiki and who would edit it, or if there’s a web site where Wikis live that anyone can create. Inviting user contributions may be what differentiates between a Wiki and other documentation related to a company’s product.
The question is what Yarbo would find valuable for its current and coming customers. This is YOUR company, Marco. What I see on Facebook speaks volumes to me about what is needed. I think in the last week alone about 5 or 10 people asked about varying Pathways – and there it is on the Forum’s feature summary page (which is why I like that page a lot). Unfortunately it takes investment to do this work, and it may be sufficient that more people are answering posts on Facebook now and providing quick responses, leaving the tough ones for Support to handle. Maybe that’s enough? Or maybe seeing a lot of “I have this problem!” on FB is not painting a good picture. I don’t know where that line is, but there are some people out there making hay on the bad stuff, with rumors that someone is making a documentary or maybe putting together a court case and is collecting information, so who knows.
Just something for your thoughts, Yarbo Marco + Team. I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here, just something I’m sure we all ponder about, but we also know Yarbo needs to have resources focused on other higher priority customer satisfaction things at the moment – I’m always looking forward to the upcoming fixes, improvements, and features.
