Plugin Author
danbp
(@danbp)
Hi abooster !
thank you for your comment. Much appreciated.
The goal of the plugin is to lead members to complete their profile (fields).
When all fields with more than 0 point are filled, a profile is considered as 100% completed.
You can attribute different points for each field, not a percentage.
The plugin admin shows a % ratio which vary depending the number of field you have and the number of point you give to each field.
This means you can have fields (including avatar) with 0 point and others from 1 to 10 points.
So it’s wrong to think that all fields have to have the same percentage. 🙂
Aha! This is how it’s supposed to work!
In other words, a field can have up to 10 points and 0 points is also possible.
This means that I actually can give different weights to different fields. Just not the way I thought.
Well, that’s brilliant!
I’ll gladly correct my rating to 5 stars (if I just manage to find how).
But I think you should add something to the description describing the points. Because it wasn’t obvious to me and I’m usually very quick grasping things like that.
Plugin Author
danbp
(@danbp)
Thought you haven’t seen the help tab on the top right corner ? 🙂
Anyway, i will consider your remark for a future version.
Thank you again for your interest.
Help tab? No, haven’t seen it.
The help tab is basically “invisible” when I scroll down and am looking at the fields rows and the points trying to figure out how they work.
The first thing I do in such situation is not to scroll up and see whether or not there is a help tab (because most plugins don’t have anything like a help tab).
So, the first thing I do when something is unclear about a plugin
is head over to the plugin page here and see if there’s something in the description or in the installation or in the FAQ tab that addresses things that are unclear.
And if you did take the effort creating a help tab for the plugin, you should as the very first thing (before putting it into the plugin) place it here on the plugin page. Because that’s where everyone is guaranteed to see it.
As the last point in the installation tab right now it says:
Do not forget to attribute a positive value to any field you want to be taken in account by the progression percentage.
That’s a very VERY cryptic message.
That’s basically a riddle, like a Rubic’s cube.
Doesn’t explain anything.
And again, keep in mind: I’m a very technically minded guy and usually very quick understanding things.
In other words: If even I didn’t get it, the average person will NEVER get it.
You want to write an instruction/description that an average person can understand.
Just checked out your help tab and it does indeed a good job explaining the point system.
Why I never considered looking there?
First, as I said, the help tab is basically “invisible” when you scroll down.
And aside from that, until now I’ve never even considered help tabs for a wordpress plugin.
But the biggie is this here:
Even though you mention the help tab in point 6 under installation tab on the plugin page, it’s followed by an extremely cryptic point #7.
And after reading that cryptic riddle that you used as your last point,
I probably thought something like: “Gee, if this here is so unclear, that help tab is probably of no use either.”
I imagine, I probably thought something like that for a split second and that made me ignore the help tab.
So, I suggest that as point #7 under installation tab on the plugin page here you put something like this:
7) Check out the “Points Shares” section under the help tab on the Settings page. It explains how you can assign different values to different fields.
Plugin Author
danbp
(@danbp)
Wow !
First, I added a help tab because of best practice recommandation for plugins authors. And because WP adds such tabs on his admin pages too. All are in the top right corner, beside screen option tabs.
Hopefully you found them while using WP, despite you seem to be an enthousiastic “down scroller” ! LOL
You’re right when saying most plugins don’t have anything like a help tab. IMHO this will became false in a near future. And sorry to ask you, but have you seen the plugin’s About page ? The access button is near the activate link on the plugin page! This is similar to BuddyPress or bbPress.
English is not my native language, i’m french. Which explain that i’m not very comfortable with subtle explanation in english.
Understand also that it is complicated to explain clearly and preferably briefly, for a large audience with different comprehension levels and habits.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I will follow your advice as soon as i get a moment.
Well, I think precisely *because* your help tab looks like a native WordPress tab, this might be the reason why some(or many?) people might overlook your helpful help tab.
When you look at any commercial plugin, you’ll see there that they’ll never “hide” a help page behind such a tab.
They either make a big bold help link that you cannot overlook or if they use tabs, they always make sure that their tabs REALLY stand out from the native WordPress tabs.
And there’s absolutely no problem with you being French.
Your help section explains it pretty well. There’s no problem.
The problem is that it’s basically HIDDEN.
Hidden in plain view, but hidden nevertheless.
You see my point?
Anyway, I’m glad you pointed out how to use it properly.
I just wanted to share my thought from the user standpoint.
P.S. No, I didn’t look at the plugin’s about page. Should I?
And here’s my point again:
If you want the user to visit a particular page (be it the about page or the help page or whatever) you absolutely CANNOT use the same normal style for those links and tabs.
Instead, you MUST make those links and tabs STAND OUT in some way.
The easiest and simplest way to make them stand out is to make those links (or tabs) BIG, FAT AND UGLY!
If you just make your important link look like an ordinary link, the user will typically ignore it.
Instead, your important link must SCREAM: Hey! LOOK AT ME! I’m different! This is IMPORTANT!
See that? Making your bold or BOLD AND ALL CAPS is a good start to make it stand out. But that alone is probably not enough. Adding a color (like red) or a background color or anything else that will make it immediately stand out.
That’s what you need to do if you want the user to really notice it.
By the way, I currently have 70 active plugins (even though I desperately try to reduce the number of installed plugins as much as humanly possible).
So, spending time on the plugin page is NOT one of my favorite past times. 🙂
