Pretty Pictures

From Google Summer of Code Mentor Wiki

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" - Elvis Costello

• Non-text documentation
  • Tools
    • Camera
    • Screencasting
      • VNC
      • WebEx
      • Dim Dim
      • XMPP
      • xwiki
      • xvidcap
      • Skitch - Mac OS
      • GTK -record my desktop
      • Wink
      • glc (supports ALSA & OpenGL)
    • CMS - Floss manuals
    • Collaborative Drawing - Inkscape
    • Multimedia/mixed sharing
    • Interactivity
    • Technical talks
      • bullet points vs. pictures (CC flickr)
      • humor
      • balance between text and graphics
    • slideshare.net (sync podcast to slides)
    • Link (annotating screenshots)
    • DANGERS:
      • focus on concepts so UI changes don't make your screenshots useless
    • Comic books for documents
    • Podcasts/videocasts (OSGFO)
      • new feature walkthroughs
      • transcription (Google Voice)
      • what social networking stuff is available for podcast?
      • Interviews - Skype
    • COWSAY
    • Good examples
      • Drupal

• How we work together/getting people involved
  • Getting People Involved in Applications
    • VLC
    • Firefox
    • Amarok - welcome OGG
  • Team pages
    • Conference photostreams
    • Phonecalls
    • Video and VOIP
    • Forums: Add photos?
    • Mechanical Turk: people answer more accurately when faces or eyes were in a picture
    • Gravitar
    • Users make great screencasts
    • Know that it takes practice
    • User software
    • Best Practices for non-text
    • Encouraging User Content
      • invite artists
      • neglect
      • enthusiastic users
      • start with a base/make it easy to add to existing
      • give an example of what you want
      • set the bar low
      • easy access
      • have a documented process for submission
      • planet feeds for blogging
      • remix feeds
      • leave a comment on blog posts
        • people with existing reputations who comment are encouraging
      • allow comments on documentation
        • respond to the comments
      • encourage and support diverse formats
      • embedding the ability to give feedback to the project
        • actual contribution not just bug reports
      • having a voting mechanism for modules
      • incorporate documentation into your application
      • encourage user groups/in person gatherings
      • have a user database to enable contact?
      • relation based searches for content
        • twitter hash tags
    • Encourage a project
      • have a logo
      • swag
      • project friendliness
      • project mascot (non-creepy)

• Software Opportunities
  • Slideshare.net
  • Add pictures to IRC
    • Add timestamps to Google Voice
    • Information overload - invite others to search for you

• Wiki tutorials