Rename the Help menu?

Project Discussion
1

Continuing the discussion from Make guides and howtos more visible?:

What should the top-level “Help” (currently) menu on fedoraproject.org be labeled?

  • Help
  • Info
  • Guidance
  • <other> (provide your idea in a comment)
0 voters
2

I suggest renaming it to Resources.

I think it looks more professional, and it covers nicely the contents of the menu.

Help sounds more like an app menu.

1 Like
3

I suggest leaving it as-is, Help

3 Likes
4

Resources has many meanings and the meaning here is metaphorical afaik (not physical resources like water or air, but knowledge).

So the term is not really accessible

1 Like
5

I have looked at other (non-FOSS and FOSS) companies providing IT products, and the general usage is between: Resources, Support, Help, or combinations/variations of these. Since Support is not appropriate for Fedora, and Help is being questioned, Resources was my choice.

A few examples: Apple’s Final Cut Pro, Pipedrive, Proton Mail. And even RedHat.

1 Like
6

I think, ‘Guidance’ or ‘Resources’ are appropriate, if the required space is available (there are restrictions because of the phone version). Otherwise, it should be ‘Info’.

I think ‘Guidance’ is the most accurate, but ‘Resources’ is also common. ‘Help’ is the worst and least meaningful option. It only covers the smallest part of the links offered there, namely Ask Fedora. Everything else has nothing to do with ‘Help’. So it is really misleading.

1 Like
7

I think Help is a good term, it’s concise and covers the essence of the various kinds of information offered under that umbrella. It also feels somewhat personal which would appeal to me as a new Fedora user (i am a relatively new user myself, about 1 month now).

  • Info is not an ideal term because it is more ambiguous in it’s meaning
  • Guidance is not an ideal term because it implies being guided or taught, it also feels more patronizing
  • Resources is not a bad term but it feels more business-like or corporate, which feels less personal than ‘help’ while not really providing more descriptive value
1 Like
8

The problem is, it does not cover the essence of the offered information.

“Help” always involves interaction, it starts with a request or question; either in real or sometimes just ‘imagined’ as in FAQs, where the question is derived abstractly from previous interactions or from pure expectation.

If you look at the main menu under help, only 1 item out of 4 follows this request-response model “Help”. And if you look at the respective links and further links, you end up with 80% that do not follow the question-answer model.

9

I have already voted for <other> and expressed my choice, but given that many votes went to Help, and following the above argument, maybe Help Center would nuance and broaden the pure Help meaning?

1 Like
10

Help is the best fit to the types of ‘information’ contained under that.

  • Ask Fedora
  • User Guides
  • Documentation
  • About (Fedora Missions and so on)

Because the way our information is structured into both interactive information discovery (Ask Fedora) and self-help, help is most accurate taxonomy above them.

Resources are correct if we organize information into different kinds of learning formats such as;

  • Users can filter by topic or by category of content like webinar, case study, video, blogs, White papers, Webinars, Industry reports
  • LInk to Call to action

Fedora Project don’t categorize the information like resources. We have two kinds: edition-specific documentation (product documentation) and edition-agnostic documentation (Release notes, Quick Docs), but not structured as resources.

Resources have multiple meanings and could well be misunderstood. And resource are rather taxonomy in website design, not information architecture.

2 Likes
11

Keep in mind that if there is a poll, the discussion is just extra, and the poll is the important metric here.

So it stays with “help”.

Or isnt it?

1 Like