Evaluation Kit & Tour

Theo (or anyone else), please do me a favor, have a

look at the tour, is that simple enough to get

started?

I downloaded the 64.7 MB tour expecting somekind of multi media file in the zip-archive. Unfortunately the download contained an installation package. Since I don't want to install stuff on my machine, I missed the tour...

I agree.

0) 62MB? What is this? The LOTR trilogy? I hope it's good

1) It was hard to find. Being in the lower right, half "below the fold" on my laptop AND camouflaged didn't help. OTOH I don't have a better idea for where you'd put it. Perhaps a "banner ad"?

2) I'm not going to install yet another bit of crapware just because I clicked on a link. And if I didn't already know and trust PSC I'd be deeply suspicious about why something like this needs to be "installed".

3) It wants administrator privileges to install. Sorry, you lose on principle -- I don't run as adminstrator by default and neither should you. Glutton for punishment that I am I went ahead and gave it the admin password that "it" prompted for. It crashed and burned anyway.

4) Offhand I'm guessing that it doesn't work at all on Linux or a Mac.

5) Ok, I'll buckle and login as administrator.

6) That gets the install process going... Oh look! An EULA! Chock full of ridiculousness ("if the product contains..." How the heck would I know what the product contains?). It even has an embedded NDA -- Heaven forbid anyone evaluating this product should tell anyone else how wonderful it is...

7) So far this has taken 30+ minutes and a full cup of coffee.

8) The README discloses that this requires Flash 7+ and speakers or headphones. It may also trigger unsafe content warnings. IE "preferred" (not by me!). And, as I suspected, it's a Windows only product. It seems like this all should have been revealed on the download page.

9) Oh by the way -- portions ("hands on" exercises) require OE Architect 10.1. It sounds like this is a big emphasis and that you'll really miss out if you don't have OEA installed. If you re-read the download page carefully this isn't actually a contradiction but it sure surprised me.

10) Ok, now it's running (the second cup of coffee is getting low). The intro music has me thinking that I'm at an Exchange Opening General Session. Is Joe about to greet me?

11) How much time should I allocate to this?

The history lesson is interesting. But I'd be curious to know how prospects react to it.

This is looking like a minimum of a 4-5 hour time investment (2 slides of 42, 15+ minutes works out to around 500 minutes... and that's without doing any hands on exercises.) That should be disclosed on the download page as well.

I'm going to have to come back to it when I've got more time. It's a beautiful Autumn Saturday after all

it's build with flash so I could do streaming too, would you like that better (over downloading install) or it should be one of the options?

The reason we have an install is that it also puts sample code in a dir structure (and obviously it's faster if you have all the images, code, pdf, etc on the local system)

Let me put it this way, the ROI is good enough to continue, if not for the leads then for the awareness

So how would you go from www.progress.com, which is kind of a corporate site,

to www.psdn.com, to the product evaluations, if you're new

on the corporate site, go products, go openedge, go psdn, etc. But I get your point, maybe we should start there already with the "roadmap to Progess".

My mistake, since I intuitively followed the link at the top of the menu

stating "Product downloads". You are right about the proper visibility of the tour

details when you're not logged in. Maybe you want to add this tour-link to the

download site homepage as well....

Not your mistake, the menu on top of PSDN has "downloads", when clicking, the landing page should have two big buttons / areas saying "download product evaluations" and "download my licensed products". we can make that clearer, on the list now.

Yes, that's what I meant, you don't want to be a member of anything, before

you know what it is And how reliable is the data somebody enters when he has

to say something about the company size, the # of PC's at his site, etc.

There's really two way companies do evaluations, one, become a member and you get lot's of additional material (incl. evaluations) or register seperately for an evaluation or even whitepapers. For now, we decided that anyone can use psdn online as guest and only for specific things like the evaluations they would have to register. Both models have their pro/con for both, the vendor and guest.

We have some control build in to avoid the mickey.mouse@hotmal.com and alike but can people fake? O sure, we had a couple of those funny as well, are they really CEO and indeed do they have >100.000 PC? But, really, that's a marketing/sales "problem" they like to have.

>No, I didn't. Something I learned in UI-design is the way the mind works: the

(western) eye scans the top left area first. So you would expect an important

message to be at the top left corner. You can try this for yourself when you add

a forum message. While typing and reading the forum message you're entering:

the eye seems to be distracted by the big buttons around the edit box,

especially with my resolution of 1920x1200 px.

Hope this helps!

The UI design is a good point, I am expecting changes moving forward but the eval is also competing with the "what's new", top documents" and the topics on the left. Still, most web sites have evaluations / Try-it on the right top or left in a menu so right and below might not be best location.

yes, it helps, keep it coming, any chance I can motivate you to dowanload and/install the tour?

as an alternative, would you like a streaming version?

I need to look into why you need admin rights, I guess because flash need to be installed. Good sugestion about letting people know how much time each topic takes.

I remember I tried with Opera and Firefox and it worked, obviously the try-it only works with OE Architect installed and that is supported on Windows only. I look into how to make more obvious. Anyone who could try to run the tour on Linux or Mac, I think it should work (except tyr-it an code of course).

as an alternative, would you like a streaming

version?

Yes.

I need to look into why you need admin rights, I

guess because flash need to be installed.

I don't think that Flash was being installed - I didn't see any evidence of that (and I already have it).

Requiring admin rights and putting stuff on people's hard drives is going to seriously limit the success of downloads in locked down corporate environments.

Good sugestion about letting people know how much time

each topic takes.

Thanks. Is it really going to take 4 or 5 hours to get through the whole thing?

I remember I tried with Opera and Firefox and it

worked,

I'm using Firefox and it worked fine. The note strikes me as boilerplate that basically says "we only tested IE". Which, IMHO is crazy. Build for and test FF, Safari & Opera first. Once things are working there then test IE -- you'll save yourself a lot of trouble by not falling into IE's traps and you won't accidentally build an "IE only" web application. Then validate IE as an after thought. It's a lot easier and much more productive than working with IE first

obviously the try-it only works with OE

Architect installed and that is supported on Windows

only.

Which raises an interesting question... why is that? Eclipse isn't a windows-only platform. Why then is OEA?

I look into how to make more obvious.

The more I think about it the more I like my "banner ad" suggestion. You could rotate various "new" things through such a space too.

Anyone who could try to run the tour on Linux or Mac, I

think it should work (except tyr-it an code of

course).

That would be a good reason to have the streaming version.

And a development license for Java (Eclipse, vi, or emacs) is free. So is Microsoft's Visual Studio Express.

Neither have a 60 day time limit.

-gus

Perhaps instead of one mega download, you should offer several options. Then, those which would work on something other than Windows could; those that can work without install would, etc. Make clear what each piece contains and what requirements it has. One of the options can be "get everything", but even then people will be more prepared for what to expect.

0) 62MB? What is this? The LOTR trilogy? I hope

it's good

me too

1) It was hard to find. Being in the lower right,

half "below the fold" on my laptop AND camouflaged

didn't help. OTOH I don't have a better idea for

where you'd put it. Perhaps a "banner ad"?

banner ad is interesting (as we could more with it) but more up and left might be better

2) I'm not going to install yet another bit of

crapware just because I clicked on a link. And if I

didn't already know and trust PSC I'd be deeply

suspicious about why something like this needs to be

"installed".

We're considering a streaming version and splitting the tutorial (code and pdf) from the tour as a separate download. Would that work?

3) It wants administrator privileges to install.

Sorry, you lose on principle -- I don't run as

administrator by default and neither should you.

Glutton for punishment that I am I went ahead and

gave it the admin password that "it" prompted for.

It crashed and burned anyway.

mmm, I didn't know you needed admin rights, we'll look into that

4) Offhand I'm guessing that it doesn't work at all

on Linux or a Mac.

just checked on Opera and Firefox and the tour runs, that is on windows though, I have not tested on Linux or Mac but I suspect that the tour will run. OE Architect is available on windows only so to install the eval and run the code in the try-it mini tutorial obviously not.

5) Ok, I'll buckle and login as administrator.

6) That gets the install process going... Oh look!

An EULA! Chock full of ridiculousness ("if the

product contains..." How the heck would I know what

the product contains?). It even has an embedded NDA

-- Heaven forbid anyone evaluating this product

should tell anyone else how wonderful it is...

sorry, can't avoid that but you have my permission to tell anyone how fantastic it is.

7) So far this has taken 30+ minutes and a full cup

of coffee.

8) The README discloses that this requires Flash 7+

and speakers or headphones. It may also trigger

unsafe content warnings. IE "preferred" (not by

me!). And, as I suspected, it's a Windows only

product. It seems like this all should have been

revealed on the download page.

on the list...

9) Oh by the way -- portions ("hands on" exercises)

require OE Architect 10.1. It sounds like this is a

big emphasis and that you'll really miss out if you

don't have OEA installed. If you re-read the

download page carefully this isn't actually a

contradiction but it sure surprised me.

so, it might trigger someone to download the evaluation kit if they haven't done so already? Good...

10) Ok, now it's running (the second cup of coffee is

getting low). The intro music has me thinking that

I'm at an Exchange Opening General Session. Is Joe

about to greet me?

forgot that, would have been fun, no?

11) How much time should I allocate to this?

That's a good point, what if we tell with each topic how long the topic takes and the expected time for completing the small exercise?

why do I answer the same thing again? Ah, I remember, IE 7 crashed on me and thought it din't get through, SORRY, forget previous...

banner ad is interesting (as we could more with it)

but more up and left might be better

Those dynamic HTML banners are annoying, especially those that float and move while you scroll.

We're considering a streaming version and splitting

the tutorial (code and pdf) from the tour as a

separate download. Would that work?

Yes, that would work. You can watch the video when you want to get an impression of ABL. When you're interested enough, it's OK to download and install a package. I think you have to differentiate your audience:

- want to know what ABL is about --> view the video, view a whitepaper or two, provide links to the online documentation, no downloads/installations

- ready to try it --> download and install the demoware (one download should be enough)

- want to know what's new in the "latest version" --> show a list of features why you want to use the new product

- experienced user that wants to evaluate the "latest product" --> he could go to the download area

The challange will be to find a proper format that is able to cover all products and all readers.

Those dynamic HTML banners are annoying, especially

those that float and move while you scroll.

also true so...

Yes, that would work. You can watch the video when

you want to get an impression of ABL. When you're

interested enough, it's OK to download and install a

package.

ok, I see what's possible with the current system or if changes would need to be made

I think you have to differentiate your

audience:

yes but it's hard though, to do it right you would potentially create a huge amount of material to suit everyones needs. Our primary audience for the Tour was existing customers not familiar with OE 10 yet, second audience was anyone new to OpenEdge. It means you sometimes need to compromise. For example, the Tour contains a few topics where we touch on the ABL, yes, we do have "DISPLAY "Hello World!"." and even 'FOR EACH customer..." but even for existing customers, it's not so bad to remind them about the tight integration between logic and data (which other vendors still try to figur out to put all in one language) and let's not forget UI (with new stuf coming down the road as you know)

- want to know what ABL is about --> view the video,

view a whitepaper or two, provide links to the online

documentation, no downloads/installations

yes, sounds like a mini roadmap, I like it.

- ready to try it --> download and install the

demoware (one download should be enough)

thought about that, the kit contains all right now, so the product eval, the tour and the try-it, big download with the potential to even get bigger.

I am doing a survey right now with people who used.

One person said they just downloaded to test if their customized v9 ADM2 app would still run, they downloaded, tested (of course it runs) and now upgraded. They didn't look at the tour because that was not their interest (at that moment), making a decission to upgrade was.

Another just downloaded the Tour first, that convinced him to take some web based training to learn more about some of the latest & greatest, he now downloaded the eval to pratice/prototype some.

What if we split in such a way there would be a roadmap where everytime you go to a next level of more detail. "would you like to know more about xyz? click here" and "do you want to try yourself xyz, click here to download the eval, click here for the tutorial, click here for a xyz specific web based training". More detail behind this of course but I'll hope you get my point.

- want to know what's new in the "latest version" -->

show a list of features why you want to use the new

product

that's a good sugestion, should we do it per version (e.g. what's new in OE 10 campared to V9) or per sub version (e.g. what's new in 10.0A, 10.0B, 10.1A, 10.1B). But, each version also has a what's new in the documentation, would that be enough and just focus on latest so compare v9 with 10.1B for a tour alike? Or is maybe a recorded presentation together with the what's new per version enough?

- experienced user that wants to evaluate the "latest

product" --> he could go to the download area

The challange will be to find a proper format that is

able to cover all products and all readers.

I know, we're trying to figur that out for next year as we speak so for all your feedback, the timing is perfect...

Bernard

What if we split in such a way there would be a roadmap where everytime you go to a next level of more detail. "would you like to know more about xyz? click here" and "do you want to try yourself xyz, click here to download the eval, click here for the tutorial, click here for a xyz specific web based training". More detail behind this of course but I'll hope you get my point.

I don't think it should be a decision tree, but rather a roadmap, i.e., up front people should be able to see what is available and choose what they are going to look at.