Hi,

I want to present an idea which is not particular new, but nobody ever followed it through for Plasma. Gamification!

We have many hidden features and it would be good if our users find them and get encouraged to find them. So what I propose is having trophies (just like on Playstation). E.g:

• First time activating Present Windows through active corner: "Task warrior level 1"
• First time closing a window in Present Windows: "Task warrior level 2"
• First time opening systemsettings: "Configuration manager level 1"
• First time opening KRunner: "Plasma mastermind level 1"
• First time using currency conversion in KRunner: "Plasma mastermind level 2"

On implementation side this could be just a notification shown whenever a new trophy got earned. With a link to a trophy center. The trophy center could have explanations for all the already earned trophies, e.g. describing how one opens Present Windows and what it does. Also it could have hints for another trophy of the same category like "if you press Alt+space a useful tool will be shown".

So what do you think? Good idea for Plasma workspace? Something to work out get a full proposal on?

mgraesslin wrote:Hi,

I want to present an idea which is not particular new, but nobody ever followed it through for Plasma. Gamification!

We have many hidden features and it would be good if our users find them and get encouraged to find them. So what I propose is having trophies (just like on Playstation). E.g:

• First time activating Present Windows through active corner: "Task warrior level 1"
• First time closing a window in Present Windows: "Task warrior level 2"
• First time opening systemsettings: "Configuration manager level 1"
• First time opening KRunner: "Plasma mastermind level 1"
• First time using currency conversion in KRunner: "Plasma mastermind level 2"

On implementation side this could be just a notification shown whenever a new trophy got earned. With a link to a trophy center. The trophy center could have explanations for all the already earned trophies, e.g. describing how one opens Present Windows and what it does. Also it could have hints for another trophy of the same category like "if you press Alt+space a useful tool will be shown".

So what do you think? Good idea for Plasma workspace? Something to work out get a full proposal on?

Fun idea, but I would personally prefer a "tutorials" or "walk through" application/kcm, with videos, for example. Also, the android YouTube app shows a translucent overlay, that teaches you how to use the not so obvious features.

pedrorodriguez wrote:Fun idea, but I would personally prefer a "tutorials" or "walk through" application/kcm, with videos, for example. Also, the android YouTube app shows a translucent overlay, that teaches you how to use the not so obvious features.

A tutorial application is something I would really love to see, but is technically still challenging. With Wayland it might become possible in future, but at the current state I think we are technological still a year away from it.

Videos are IMHO completely useless as they get outdated pretty quickly and are almost impossible to translate and distribute. Therefore: tutorial application.

Also I think this is kind of orthogonal. There are users who benefit more from gamification and users who benefit more from tutorials.

mgraesslin wrote:Videos are IMHO completely useless as they get outdated pretty quickly and are almost impossible to translate and distribute. Therefore: tutorial application.

With videos I meant the kind of animation that we have now for kwin effects.

pedrorodriguez wrote:

mgraesslin wrote:Videos are IMHO completely useless as they get outdated pretty quickly and are almost impossible to translate and distribute. Therefore: tutorial application.

With videos I meant the kind of animation that we have now for kwin effects.

Yep, and they are completely outdated already. They all need to be redone using the breeze theme. It just doesn't scale well

mgraesslin wrote:Also I think this is kind of orthogonal. There are users who benefit more from gamification and users who benefit more from tutorials.

Maybe. To me it makes an unnecessary distinction between people who go: show me how this works, so that I can work more efficiently; and people that go: let's play with my desktop and see what feature I'll learn today. Maybe I don't see the point because I belong to the first group

mgraesslin wrote:Yep, and they are completely outdated already. They all need to be redone using the breeze theme. It just doesn't scale well

Yeah, you are right..

Do you really want to have Plasma/KDE compared to obstacle games in the press? I can see the golem.de forum threads =)

Hidden features are certainly a problem, but imo we should seek to introduce them to users rather than encouiraging the user to hunt for them by trying random shortcuts - games do usually not perform destructive operations on your data ("You became a level #3 Trashmaster! Congratulations, you just figured how to irreversibly delete files"...)

Systemsettings could be a button in the default panel and one could paint tip-of-the-day hints into proper desktop locations ("Press Alt+F2 to access a versatile runner" in the top center, "Move mouse here to get a window oversight" in the top right corner etc.)
The tip would disappear when the user triggered the feature and after some time another one would be added.
Clients would add and remove tips to/from kuiserver and plasmashell (or anything) listens to a kuiserver signal that emits the next tip (when one was removed or after eg. a tip was shown for an hour or so)

About the effect videos:
I *think* that I mentioned this or similar issues and still believe that simply having a demo button that triggers the effect (in doubt w/ some fake windows) would be a better solution :-P

we discuss the plasma edit mode it would be better to show the hidden features in the edit mode than make a tutorial.

for me plasma is sometimes to much and doesnt feel like other applications. and hidden features are one reason for that. e.o. change wallpaper isn't a kcm. plasma should show the user what it is without so many hidden features

Gamification is a buzzword to keep users active even when the task is boring. It's not to make appearing things funnier, IMHO. To me, the 'gamification' of Plasma Workspace is the kdegames effort. And it never can replace a good documentation.

Gamification would make more sense from a community / website point of view. I.e Getting points for editing the wiki, or submiiting a patch etc. What the rewards would be is another matter however!

Sorry for hijacking this thread, Martin...

davidwright wrote:Gamification would make more sense from a community / website point of view. I.e Getting points for editing the wiki, or submiiting a patch etc. What the rewards would be is another matter however!

I totally agree. Gamification is imho the key to get user involved into the community. I do have quite some ideas how this could work - but I would need some people willing to contribute on some code to get this working. Anyone interested? Just PM me.