Re: [Tails-ux] Phrasing for the graphical interface startup …

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Author: sajolida
Date:  
To: Tails user experience & user interface design
Old-Topics: Re: [Tails-ux] Phrasing for the graphical interface startup failure (#14521)
Subject: Re: [Tails-ux] Phrasing for the graphical interface startup failure (#14521)
intrigeri:
> intrigeri:
> I've shown this to a fellow Tails developer and he wondered what he
> was supposed to do and whether typing <Enter> report a bug (it won't).
> Besides, "Report a bug" is misleading as the URL points to our
> documentation about troubleshooting startup problems.
>
> So I think some rephrasing is in order.
>
> Let me first clarify what are the two scenarios I'm trying to help
> make possible/easier here:
>
> 1. The user visits https://deb.li/TailsNoX, follows our
>    troubleshooting doc about "Tails does not start entirely" and finds
>    a workaround for their hardware in there. But this workaround is
>    inconvenient (e.g. it requires typing additional boot options every
>    time they start Tails) so the user has an incentive to let us know
>    about the problem, and then they would follow our error reporting
>    documentation, that's linked prominently from the Desktop, and
>    instructs them to use WhisperBack.

>
>    In this case, displaying the hardware details on this screen is
>    useless: this info will be included by default in the bug report
>    the user will send us later. But displaying the URL is
>    probably useful.

>
> 2. The user visits https://deb.li/TailsNoX, follows our
>    troubleshooting doc and gets lost or does not find a workaround for
>    their hardware. Best case, they'll go far enough on the right path
>    to find the instructions that tell them to report a bug over email
>    to our Help Desk team, and to include error messages appear when
>    they start Tails, e.g. by taking a picture.

>
>    In this case, the URL is useful: it directly points the user to the
>    troubleshooting doc, in case they were not following our online
>    installation assistant or got lost in there. And the hardware
>    details are useful: we are giving the user exactly the info they
>    should report us, and nothing more.

>
> So how about this:
>
> Please visit https://deb.li/TailsNoX for troubleshooting, then report this error:
> GDM fails to start with Cirrus Logic GD 5446 [1013:00b8]
>
> I think it expresses better the path we suggest the user takes, and
> adding "please" helps clarify that this screen is not a widget that
> can trigger an action.
>
> Thoughts, improvements?


Regarding the error message:

- deb.li is case sensitive and that worries me a bit. There's also no
relationship between 'NoX' and 'GDM'. What about instead
https://deb.li/tailsgdm/?

Or even https://tails.boum.org/gdm which is only 3 characters more but
might be less intimidating or weird to our users by having a familiar
domain name. And we'll have direct control over the redirection.

- I like "Please" :)

- ', then ' → ' and ' (3 characters less)

Regarding where to point to: unfortunately, I think there's currently no
good place to point to. That's also the problem raised in #14788 and
others. But maybe this feature will be a good trigger for me to finally
work on that :)

Can we change the redirection afterwards with deb.li?

In terms of strategy, in the current version we're asking people to
report the error, whether or not the troubleshooting section was useful
for them or the issue already known. I'm afraid of overloading our help
with more reports that they won't be able to solve.

If our goal is to lower the reports on help desk, we could only point to
that web page and rely on it to be a better filter and ask the right
people to report the right bugs (right now it's probably a catastrophe).

The message could then be:

Error starting GDM with Cirrus Logic GD 5446 [1013:00b8]. Please visit
https://deb.li/tailsgdm for troubleshooting.

Which is 115 characters (23 less).

And what about an ASCII art QR code?</joke>