Thread by @z9sx7wox

So, this is my thread of thinking out loud about onboarding for @RoamResearch for the most recent edition of #RoamGames - hop in if you want to bounce ideas together.

For a while, I've joked privately that someone needs to make something called: ROAM FOR THE REST OF US.

https://twitter.com/RoamStack/status/1356600982210248704

This thread will be a collection of trains of thoughts and conversations so hop in wherever you like.

So, for Roam, onboarding sucks + the online community, though generous and fertile isn't conducive to learning for to people who don't have disposable time 2 watch or read a ton

That said, the core functionality of it all relies on [[pages]] and blocks, which are easy enough to learn.

When I say THE REST OF US, I mean those of us that have real problems only a couple extra hours per week on top of our existing responsibilities

https://twitter.com/Conaw/status/1315078546763603968?s=20

So a simple way of handling this is having us figure out what these use cases are that invite someone to fold in @RoamResearch into their life.

What are they?

From there you can do a bunch of things 1) a simple button at the top of the screen that is a (?) - a help icon. - that shows up if (someone's graph has) < (# pages ) OR (# blocks) - this shows you it's a "fresh" graph

this button can be what triggers the onboarding - start it off with a high contrast color in the ecosystem

the onboarding can be a choose your own adventure type of thing - the adventures you can choose from are use cases that the Roam team (and #roamcult) have identified.

Below are some of these use cases + good tutorials 4 them (I invite you to post links that you've found useful)

- ADHD scaffold/support (me)
- To Do lists
- Calendaring
- Cooking Recipe Management
- Blog post writing

- Learning resource management (online courses/books/articles)
- Journal/Diary
- Customer Relations Management
- Writing fiction - managing drafts + brainstorming

Here's a 🧵 with some great input from @maxkriegers about this issue that I had in Sept. 2020 - key here is the idea that: You don’t have to be “smart” to use roam - brought up bcuz there’s an unhealthy fetishization of knowledge management on twitter

https://twitter.com/z9sx7wox/status/1311007063787687936

Les Kristofs have a superb collection of videos for onboarding imo - this is the kind of stuff that has the feel of how kids get taught how to use computers in primary and highschool - autobio scope dealing with their daily problems in a manageable scope.

youtube.com/playlist?list=…

I firmly believe that this kind of approach would help so many people.

putting it here as a bookmark to talk w/ u all about and build out some UI sketches...

This kind of teaching allows for a blossoming of activity in that it can invite the following:

https://twitter.com/geoffreylitt/status/1308833945388187648

I want to look into the kind of “onboarding” that was used in the 90s getting kids to learn to type/use things in their computer lab, that feels like a fertile direction to look in...