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Grex > Coop11 > #69: Making newuser less intimidating? | |
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rtg
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Making newuser less intimidating?
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Jan 24 04:35 UTC 1999 |
I'm not sure if this belongs here or in Garage, so please forgive me.
I've helped several people get new grex accounts in the past month.
In each case, their eyes were glazing over pretty fast as we plodded
through the newuser script, and I ended up just giving them the defaults
because they did not want to even try to understand the concept of
control keys and shells right then.
I propose that newuser be stripped to the bare minimum: username and
Password. Once an account is created, offer them the change program,
and move all the explanatory text into help options specific to each
parameter which is settable.
Mebbe this should be a separate item, but it seems to me that we have a
large percentage of users who seem to collect multiple accounts for a
hobby. Could we stave off the 64k UID problem if we asked in newuser if
they already have an account on grex, and if so, verify the userid and
password, then assign this new username to the same UID, and possibly
home directory?
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| 79 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 1 of 79:
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Jan 24 06:33 UTC 1999 |
Do users really want to collect multiple aliases for a single account?
This is rather different from multiple accounts. How could we find out
what users are doing and why, and whether this suggestion would be
equally acceptable?
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steve
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response 2 of 79:
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Jan 24 07:51 UTC 1999 |
I don't think the 64K problem will be affected much by asking
people about an existing account or not. Lots of people aren't
sure what they're accounts are, it seems.
You are right; newuser needs an overhaul but unlike just about
any other piece of software here we need to have a design session
for it. The world was incredibly different back in 1991, and the
things we ask today do show signs of that age, I know.
However, it might not be as important these days, now that we
have the web version of newuser. I haven't checked in a while,
but the web newuser runs compared to the original have climbed
every month, such that I think that more people run the web newuser
than original. I'll check on that again.
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devnull
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response 3 of 79:
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Jan 24 11:42 UTC 1999 |
I don't remember exactly what newuser asks for now, but I think some of it
includes the interrupt key and some others. I'm inclined to believe that
the default control characters are reasonable; I don't think I've ever
wanted to override them. Most people aren't going to understand what the
control sequences are for, anyway. So maybe changing newuser to just use
those defaults rather than asking would be a win.
It might also be reasonable to ask `do you have experience with unix'
(but fine-tune the wording), and if the person says no, pick some default
shell and default editor. If the person says yes, ask them. (I certainly
found it convinient that I could set my shell to bash when I ran newuser,
but most people probably don't want to be confused by picking a shell.)
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keesan
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response 4 of 79:
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Jan 24 16:04 UTC 1999 |
I was happy to be able to pick csh instead of menu, but otherwise the choices
were pretty confusing. Even for Jim, he had me enter a newuser account fo
someone because it would have taken him to long to read it all. I vote for
defaults on things like erase key and VT-100 (anyone without it will know what
to do about it) but explain the difference between shells and give a choice.
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cmcgee
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response 5 of 79:
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Jan 24 16:24 UTC 1999 |
I vote against explaining the difference between shells. I like the "do you
have experience with unix" as a sorting mechanism. let people who want to
find out about shells wander into a side-road, but let the truly naive go
straight on. However, experience with unix is perhaps too high a threshold.
How about a quick sentence that lets people like keesan choose csh, without
proclaiming themselves experienced unix users.
In my experience, I stuck with menu until I was confident enough to start
asking questions. At that point Rane explained "leaving menu" and "coming
back" so that I didn't get lost. My first few weeks on Grex, I explored a
lot, but it was all from menu. It was only after 4-6 weeks of almost daily
wandering around Grex that I was ready to even understand the concept of
shells.
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devnull
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response 6 of 79:
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Jan 24 17:39 UTC 1999 |
So I guess the right question is `Do you want simple defaults that work well
for begining users, or would you like to pick from the more advanced options?'
I agree that some amount of explaination is probably reasonable so that
intermediate users can get the more advanced options; making it harder to
become a unix wizard is not something we should encourage, but I hadn't
been thinking clearly about people like keesan.
I tend to like relying on telnet to pass the right value of TERM (which works
unless I'm on a Linux console or am using screen on a system which lacks
the proper termcap entry). But I suppose defaulting to vt100 is perfectly
reasonable; I don't believe anything I use with any frequency is not vt100ish.
(I can only remember ever seeing one real vt100; it's set up as the terminal
for a soda machine at MIT.)
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other
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response 7 of 79:
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Jan 24 19:19 UTC 1999 |
i think i used to use actual vt52 terminals for the vax/vms 11/780 server at
vassar when i was there....
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remmers
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response 8 of 79:
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Jan 25 14:35 UTC 1999 |
I agree that the technical dialog in newuser should be simplified. Like
Rick, I've had the experience of trying to guide folks through newuser
and seeing their eyes glaze over.
Another area where I'd like to see some streamlining is in the personal
questions that newuser asks (address, phone number, interests, computer
equipment). I recommend that we not ask for address, phone number, and
computer equipment at all, but urge people somewhat more strongly than
we do now to supply an alternate email address if they have one, for
verification of identity in case they need a password reset or have
some other problem connecting.
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janc
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response 9 of 79:
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Jan 25 22:53 UTC 1999 |
Well, one of my goals when designing the webnewuser interface was to
simplify many of these things. It has three sections:
Account Identification:
Asks for Full Name, Login ID and Password.
Account Configuration:
States up front that if you don't understand this stuff, you can
just take the defaults, and you'll be fine. Asks for
Login Shell (defaults to "menu")
Text Editor (defaults to "pico")
Terminal Type (defaults to "vt100")
Backspace Key (defaults to control-H)
Interupt Key (defaults to control-C)
It doesn't ask about the kill key, and I'd happily delete the
Interupt Key question and hardwire it to control-C.
Personal Information
This section says up front that all info entered is optional and
that you can keep it private by hitting the appropriate button.
It warns you that if you don't enter any other contact info, we
may not be able to help you if you forget your password. It asks
for:
Telephone number
Other Email addresses
Date of Birth
Sex
Interests
Computers
and it gives you a privacy button.
The other advantage of the web page is that big long chunks of text,
like descriptions of the different shells, is kept off the main page -
you click a link to see it.
For the telnet version, I agree that the second section could be done
by asking first:
Accounts on Grex can be set up in many different configurations.
These settings can be changed at any time. If you are a experienced
Unix user, you may want to choose your own settings now, but for
most people, starting with our suggested defaults works fine.
Would you like to start with our suggested defaults?
Probably you still need to do the keys thing for the Backspace key for
all users. There just is no standard. The other keys could go.
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senna
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response 10 of 79:
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Jan 26 17:46 UTC 1999 |
The way Jan sorted things for the web interface looks good. There needs to
be a total overhaul, though. Between the tragedy of electronic commons and
all the strange key combinations, it's a mess. I don't even bother to read
through it all, I just do it by memory. Friends who have no experience are
lost.
I should clarify, the way Jan did the web newuser looks well sorted. The
standard system newuser needs the overhaul. We might want to get some
volunteers to really pour energy into this.
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devnull
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response 11 of 79:
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Jan 26 20:24 UTC 1999 |
Re #8: It's not clear to me that webnewuser should be asking *any* unix
shell questions. If people are running webnewuser, maybe they're never
going to telnet to grex.
Yes, people need to get backspace set correctly. How many webnewuser users
know whether their telnet client sends ascii 8 or ascii 127? I think the
Right Thing may be to set the shell on webnewuser generated accounts to
something which asks people to hit their backspace key, and then it can
finish the setup, change their shell to menu, and immediately run menu.
It is not clear to me whether it would be worth making the birthday info
people provide automatically find its way into the motd. I don't think we
really want every grex account in that list; finding out about 20 birthdays
each day would be too much for everyone to read. I can think of some
schemes to store a ~/.birthday file and add people automatically after they've
participated in the conferences some amount, but I think the current system
for birthday adding is just fine the way it is. (Besides, I'm the first
person on the list right now.)
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jshafer
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response 12 of 79:
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Jan 26 20:32 UTC 1999 |
(What is the current system for adding birthdays?)
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janc
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response 13 of 79:
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Jan 26 20:53 UTC 1999 |
If you ask staff (or valerie) to be added to the birthday wisher list,
you'll be added.
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remmers
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response 14 of 79:
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Jan 26 21:21 UTC 1999 |
I'll suggest, for discussion, the following overhaul to "Personal
Information" section, for both the telnet and web newuser:
o Dispense with the privacy option altogether. Make certain fields
always private and other fields always public.
o Fields which are always private:
- alternate email addresses
- password hint (some word or phrase that the person can
communicate to staff if they forget their password,
to verify that they really are the account owner)
o Field which is always public:
- personal statement
The user would be invited to type in a personal statement
containing any information they wanted to share. Whatever they
enter becomes their .plan file, which is automatically made
readable. If they don't enter anything, no .plan is created.
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valerie
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response 15 of 79:
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Jan 27 06:07 UTC 1999 |
This response has been erased.
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rtg
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response 16 of 79:
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Jan 27 07:40 UTC 1999 |
I like Jan's description of web newuser. I must admit I've never run
it. Is it lynx-friendly? How about replacing the tty newuser with a
script that runs lynx and the web newuser pages?
Oh Oh - I can already see problems, since lynx requires full-screen
support, so we'd have to determine terminal type before even starting
it.
It's a neat thought, though - having only one place to maintain the
newuser process.
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mary
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response 17 of 79:
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Jan 27 11:04 UTC 1999 |
Re: #15 How big of project would it be to totally rewrite
newuser and get it into the Grex domain?
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remmers
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response 18 of 79:
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Jan 27 11:24 UTC 1999 |
Re resp:15 - My thought was that if there was a "password hint"
field in which a user could fill in unique information for
verification purposes, the address and phone number wouldn't
be as necessary.
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steve
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response 19 of 79:
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Jan 27 18:17 UTC 1999 |
The source is available. Its in AFS space, and with the mit bridge
between afs and the web I think anyone can get it. The real issue is
what to do with newuser, not access to it.
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mdw
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response 20 of 79:
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Jan 28 03:52 UTC 1999 |
The problem with "stripping" newuser down is that's not really a good
idea. When the "helpful" person is there, telling the new person
everything they have to do, they stop thinking, and they stop
remembering. Instead, they type in everything they're told, and that's
that. The problems start the *next* time they log in. They don't know
how to erase input, because their mind was in neutral last time. They
don't remember their interrupt key. In fact, they can't even remember
what an interrupt key does, because they didn't have to think.
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rtg
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response 21 of 79:
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Jan 28 05:52 UTC 1999 |
I see your point. That's why I refuse to sit at the keyboard when I'm
helping new people sign up. I know it's a blank the first time they log
in without me sitting by them.
However, the reason I was sitting by them in the first place is that
they were too intimidated by the computer to even attempt it by
themselves. I'd like to see something that gets them in quickly, so that
they can see a quick benefit, and yet make the help and advanced features
available easily as they find need for them.
Could newuser change tty modes on the fly? Would it be possible to
identify the terminal type early, and then switch to a full-screen mode
for the input, and be able to hyperlink to the explanation/help text if
necessary? Ideally, the newuser program would be bare-bones, and then
once the userid, password, and terminal type are determined, link to the
change program directly, so that the user gets some experience with the
utility they will eventually return to.
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mic
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response 22 of 79:
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Feb 4 03:10 UTC 1999 |
If you decide to overhaul newuser, I'd be happy to program it if you so wish.
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remmers
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response 23 of 79:
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Feb 8 14:58 UTC 1999 |
It's been a while since I've looked at newuser, but if memory serves,
what's at issue here -- the questions newuser asks -- is controlled
to a large extent by template files rather than being hard-coded. So I
doubt that major overhaul of the code would be necessary.
There seems to be concensus that the "technical" questions that newuser
asks -- setting special keys, terminal type, login shell, etc. --
should be simplified, with the user being given the choice of accepting
standard defaults.
There's mixed opinion on the other stuff that newuser asks -- address,
phone number, etc. I favor simplifying that significantly too, though
apparently not everyone agrees.
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pfv
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response 24 of 79:
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Feb 8 18:20 UTC 1999 |
As far a user parameters, why not try somthing akin to:
Please Select one of the following Configurations:
1) For Those familiar with DOS (simple list..);
2) For Those familiar with Windows (simple list..);
3) For Those familiar with Linux (simple list..);
Your Selection (you can alter all this later):
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