How to help users discover new features in the Opera browser?
15 CommentsPublished January 23rd, 2007 8:36 PM EST By Daniel Goldman
Last month I asked my readers to submit any questions they have about Opera. One of the questions I received, asked about what Opera can do to make some of the useful features that are hidden in the Opera browser more apparent to users – but without being obtrusive.
The Opera browser comes loaded with many features, tools, and shortcuts. Most features are of course hidden and don’t intrude the average user. Having said that, many of those features will enhance your browsing experience and will make it more fun on the web. The 64 thousand dollar question is how does Opera keep a proper balance of making it easier for users to discover new features while doing it in a non-obtrusive manner.
Opera’s Lawrence Eng was kind enough to respond. Lawrence is a market researcher at Opera Software working in the San Diego Opera office.
Question (by Opera user: WojciechE):
Opera has a tremendous number of very handy little features and made a great effort to integrate them seamlessly, in a non-intrusive way into the default configuration – that’s Opera’s major competitive advantage.
However, most users know only a small fraction of the features. Many people (often refusing to use Opera) think the Opera Suite is just about integrated mail client, chat and RSS, and know nothing about all the handy tiny features. Lastly, I’ve heard a lot of people who claim they’ve used Opera, and it doesn’t contain anything special over other browsers.
As shown above – Opera’s tremendous potential is wasted because users do not know what is so great about Opera even when they try using it.
My question is: Are you going to do anything about that – create an easy way so that people can learn how to efficiently use Opera?
Based on my long-time users’ observations, I strongly believe Opera should do much more to actively help users discover its handy features. For a start, look at my post – e.g. Tips panel doesn’t sound bad, neither intrusive, does it? I have more smooth ideas in this subject, if you’re interested.
Opera’s Lawrence Eng’s response:
That’s a really great question, and I’m really glad you asked it. I generally agree with your observations. Opera does indeed have a lot of features that many (or even most) Opera users do not know about (and might not learn any time soon). In one sense, we view that as being okay, because we realize that the Opera browser is multifaceted and can be used in any number of ways. Different users have different needs, so it makes sense for one user to know about Opera features A,B, and C, whereas another user relies heavily on features X, Y, and Z which are completely different. Although Opera is a feature-rich application, our developers have worked very hard to make sure that the user experience is easy and straighforward. Basically, we want to help people do what they want to do, and even though we have features any single user might not care about, we make sure that the unusued parts of the application do not get in his or her way.
That said, however, one of our primary goals at Opera Software is to make people’s lives easier and better through the software we make. We don’t come up with features just for the heck of it, or to brag about how innovative we are. Our innovations are geared towards the end-user, and are fully intended to make everyday browsing quicker, more productive, more secure, and more fun, so of course we want as many people as possible to know all the things they can do while using Opera. It’s also about giving Opera users choices regarding how they interact with the web. For example, we offer at least 7 built-in ways to go back to the previous page in one’s browsing history: the standard back button, ‘Z’ on the keyboard, Backspace on the keyboard, an option in the right-click context menu, a mouse gesture, the mouse button rocker gesture, and voice command. And if that’s not enough, we make most of these things (i.e. keyboard shortcuts, mouse gestures, and navigation buttons) highly customizable. Sure, most people don’t need 7 or more ways to go Back, but if one of those ways makes someone’s life easier, then we’ve done a good job. By building-in features that work right out of the box, we think it’s more likely that people will find and learn about those features than if they had to search for and download them as an extension or add-on.
Even though we want the user experience to be simple and straightforward, we also want our users to become more powerful as they use Opera, taking control of their web experience like they never have before (even if they have very little technical knowledge). Some people say that Opera is more geared towards power users. In my mind, Opera is great for creating power users.
Teaching and Learning Opera
Having stated Opera’s philosophy regarding browser features, the initial question remains. How do we help people learn about all of those features? We certainly don’t want to overwhelm people with a huge readme file or a manual that they have to read when they first launch the browser. Learning Opera should be easy, fun, and empowering, not intimidating or a chore. I am not an expert in software usability (though some of my developer colleagues are), so my ideas may or may not be realistic and I certainly don’t make the final decisions about browser features, but here are some thoughts based on my observations of various Opera users who have different levels of familiarity with the browser.
The most common thing that I’ve noticed when talking to people about Opera is that overwhelming them with a list of cool features they’ve never heard of before is usually not the best approach. First of all, it’s hard for them to know what you’re talking about, and secondly, they want to feel like empowerment is within their reach, not that they have to learn so many new things to stop feeling deficient. That’s why I usually ask people about their browsing habits well before I even start talking about a single feature of Opera, or even better, they’ll let me watch them browse the web. Based on that, I can determine one or two Opera features that would immediately be useful to them, and after I show those to them, I back off and let them figure things out on their own (unless they ask for more help). Most people enjoy discovering things on their own, and Opera has plenty to discover. People I’ve introduced to Opera will come back to me and tell me the various features they’ve learned about and have fallen in love with, and I’m often surprised by what they’ve become attached to. The important thing is that they’ve made the browser their own, without us forcing anything onto them.
If the lesson we’ve learned here is that people want to learn about Opera step-by-step and not all at once, how can we facilitate that? We have various tutorials and other documentation scattered around opera.com, but not everyone enjoys reading user manuals, and there’s no clear indication of which content should be learned first. That’s why I’m in favor of a system that presents information to Opera users incrementally as they become more experienced with the program. You mentioned a Tips panel, and I have to say that I really like that idea. A lot of programs have help files built-in, but I think a Tips panel that displays new tips on a regular basis would be even more useful. Some programs show tips on startup, but that can get annoying very quickly. A Tips sidepanel is out of the way and is accessed only when the user feels like learning something new. For new users of Opera, the early tips would be for more basic features, whereas veteran users would be exposed to more advanced features and hints. The frequency of new tips could be decided upon by the user.
“Become fluent in Opera in 5 minutes a day or less!”
One reason I like the Tips panel idea is the fact that I personally learned a lot about Opera years ago from a website known as “30 Days to Becoming an Opera Lover”. The author of that document, Tim Luoma, had the right idea, splitting his exploration of Opera into many small parts, and introducing each part one day at a time. By the time I was done with the series, I felt like a much more powerful Opera user, and we want all our users to feel that way. The great thing about Opera panels is that it’s possible to display full webpages within the constraints of the panel itself (due to Opera’s excellent ERA (extensible rendering architecture). A new version of the “30 days” site hasn’t been made for the latest version of Opera, but perhaps something like it (created by Opera Software or MyOpera community members) could be incorporated as a default side panel webpage. (It would have the additional benefit of letting people know that webpages can be viewed as panels.)
If we want to get really fancy, we can create a system that automatically suggests tips to users based on how they actually use the browser. Very recently, an experimental build of Opera was released that sends information anonymously back to Opera Software regarding what features a person has used and how often, and what preferences have been selected. Based on that information (but making sure that privacy is respected at all times), I imagine that we could intelligently suggest tips that are directly relevant to a particular user’s browsing behaviors. If someone downloads a lot of files, for example, we could send them tips on how to use bittorrent and the download manager. If you’re curious, you can download the experimental build here.
A Shared Effort
Last but not least, there is one more very huge thing we can use to help people learn more about the Opera browser, and that’s the MyOpera community. Some people like figuring out new technology on their own, but many people like a helping hand. We have a lot of really helpful people on the MyOpera community, and with their support, we can work to make sure that people new to Opera have a good initial experience, and have friendly people they can turn to when they want to learn more advanced stuff. In Opera’s Help menu, we already have a link to the community, which is great, but we could probably make the process even better. For example, we could provide a link directly to a forum where community volunteers answer questions from brand new users, or maybe even an IRC channel that serves the same purpose.
So far, Opera has done pretty well. With our currently available documentation, and with the support of a wonderful user community, millions of people have made the Opera browser their own and have become more savvy internet users in the process. Sure, there are a lot of people who don’t want to bother learning new and improved ways of interacting with the web, and we’re not going to force anything on them, but there are still very many people who have yet to try Opera and see for themselves what they can do that goes beyond mere browsing. By making Opera a pleasure to learn as well as easy to use, we can do a lot of good for a lot of people, and that’s what keeps us motivated at the end of the day.
About the author:
Lawrence Eng is the US Market Research and Outreach Manager for Opera Software. He holds a PhD in Science in Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he studied fan subcultures and technology. He works out of Opera’s San Diego branch office.
using
One thing that I might reccommend is some kind of tour of the program when Opera starts up for the first time. If a user wants to, they can be taken around the various areas of the browser, for a general overview, or for a particular feature set. It should be fairly simple for the “average” user, and there could be a place for people who want to know more information to post in the Opera Community forums. And, heck, let the people in the forums add their own suggestions at the end of the tour, and have others vote the advice up as being useful. (Yes, like digg.) More interaction with the community and the browser, but at the same time.
It’s basically what I and Lawrence did with “30 days,” but built into the browser.
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I wonder if it’s possible to have Opera guess what feature to show you next based on how you browse. If Daniel can watch someone browse and have an idea for what features might be helpful to them, why can’t this process be animated and shipped off to users. Then these ideas could be presented in a panel.
This makes me think about the latest weekly–usage statistics. Perhaps Opera has this in mind… and wants to know what features are used the most, which ones are used by power users, which ones are used together by power users, etc, so that Opera can start working on a feature suggesting panel.
At any rate, I’m excited about this. I feel like I know my way around Opera pretty darn well, but I don’t know most keyboard shortcuts, and I could get a little better with some mouse gestures.
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I like the community volunteer thread idea the best.
The forums can be daunting at first glance… so even if the user manages to find his or her way there getting to the right thread is a big issue. Even then a “use the search function” response common on most forums (not necessarily my.opera) would be even more disheartening.
If you can build a bridge from the UI to the community. The callout would be something like “How can I…?” Or “Learn more about….” or something like that that takes you right into a “new user” community forum that skims the fat off the current forums and welcomes the same questions, has easy access and links to the appropriate tutorials, etc etc.
I’d volunteer to check it often and help out.
-Eddie
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Oh- I also meant to use my favorite word to describe Opera: bespoke. You can have it tailored exactly to your needs, as simple or complex as they may be. Admittedly, it sometimes takes a master tailor to fit your properly.. like Lawrence making recommendations.
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Heh, I didn’t read the entire article. Didn’t see that Lawrence had that about the forums in there already.
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The tips panel should be offline. That’s the main problem with the Opera help system, it musn’t be with the tips.
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Hmm… Just noticed…Too many steps (clicks) before getting *help*…
1. (menu) help
2. opera help
3. opera for desktop
4. opera 9.0 for windows
5.
The system knows I’m on desktop and version 9… Why not let me go from 2 to 5 directly… ???
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What about situation based tips? Something like: The first time you have a large horizontal scrollbar you get a hint (perhaps like the mail/rss info messages that show up when new messages arrive), that you could use “Fit to width (Ctrl-F11)” to get rid of the scrollbar. There are other possibilities to guess useful feature suggestions, I think.
It should be unobtrusive, but visible and recognizable, as people don’t like to be disturbed and usually don’t read that much (from my experience alert messages are often not read carefully).
Or you could integrate that already mentioned offline tips panel with the 30-days tour. A first time tour is a nice idea, too. One thing with that: Many people don’t know, that they can click with the mouse cursor on the far left to bring up the panels. What about a “reversed” snap-to-grid function, that highlights the panel switch the first (few) times, that the user comes close to the browser edge. The search creating feature is probably unknown by most people (my experience). It could be mentioned, when a user uses a search field. The search in address bar could be mentioned as well in certain situations. What about something like: A user searches a pretty well known website like IMDB and gets a hint, that he can search IMDB by using “i movietitle” in the address bar, if he creates his own search.
Another thing: The mouse gestures are usually pretty hard to explain, as people most of the time just reply with something like: I can do that with . Perhaps useful gestures could be highlighted the first time someone accidently performs a gesture (not only the alertbox with “turn it on?”)
Just a few, fast, not reflected ideas…
using
How surprising, I was thinking about it a few times before.
In my opinion, there must be a first-launch page which describes the main/most useful features of the browser (tabbed browsing, anti-phishing), with a little description of how they work. There could be a discreet link to the feature pages on the Opera site (it’s where I first heard about tab recovery).
Tips panel would be useful to the people who will open it – as far as I’m concerned, I never look in the tip section of any progam, even if it’s on startup. I think that a little tooltip that appears when hovering a main used feature, with a small description and a « Learn more », which expand the tooltip with more detailed instruction on how to use the feature.
One more thing: the Opera default theme should use more appealing icons! Who would guess that there’s a download manager behind an antenna? Or that a gray « i » in the address bar shows that the page is safe? What’s more, there’s a lack of uniformity in the style of the icons: the RSS and Widget icons look more modern than the other one… I think it’s time to upgrade the whole icon set.
If you want, I can try to do something with what sould appear on the first-launch page.
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Investor, for me I can’t get past step 2. I’m using Opera 9.12, and there’s currently no help files for this version — I get an error page when I visit the help section.
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“If you want, I can try to do something with what sould appear on the first-launch page.”
Romain, sure we’re always looking for ways to improve. Your fresh ideas will certainly be useful.
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To much questions about how convince users to use desktop Opera browser when the answers are already there:
If you read the comments in this blog, you will see:
1.About the product. The interface is not accessible. Suggestion: Create a dialogue with the user to keep him motivated. There are many examples of products making this, as mentioned Apple, also CellPhones, Video Games, etc.
2.About the promotion. The product is not known. Suggestion: Let people in all market segments note Opera’s existence. Also about its features within current users.
Here is everything, including suggestions about the “Help”, I mean, Have you tried to find a tutorial explaining the way to configure e-mail from the Help function? Do you thing your mom may find it? Let’s think about the tips feature, something great, then what, Another “not used” function?
If you still do not have your answer, may be is because the question.
Instead of:
How to help users discover new features in the Opera browser?
I may suggest:
How to help Opera browser move users to try its features (Old and new)?
How to help Opera browser support users?
How to hep Opera browser attract users?
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I like graste’s thoughts, but you have to have to put empahsis on the “unobtrusive” and I’d like to add that it should *always* be right. I think we all remember how annoying clippy was.
I’ve got some thoughts that I’ll put up in a seperate blog post on cool/clever way to get people learning about the interface- One idea (in short): make it a “game” to complete a tutorial on certain features and let users have a “score” that the my.opera community can see (if the user allows it).
FYI- Although it’s about web pages (not browsers), Opera’s Ken Maage just posted on thoughts on the usability blog that talk about the “welcome!/Tour” type of user experience which relates to our subject here.
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I’ll go offtopic here because I don’t know where else to write it…
I’d like to see something I think would be a killer feature for power users (and possibly others): user-customized keyboard shortcuts for links and buttons on a particular page/website.
Let’s say I’m using a particular social site where I send and receive messages to and from other people. The link “You have x new messages” is, using Opera’s spatial navigation, Shift + down/down/down/down/down/right/right/right/right/right/right/right/right. That’s the fastest way I can get there… But it’s a lot slower than using the mouse.
If I could tell Opera “bind this link to Alt+M”, that would be incredible. I could do a similar thing for most websites I use, rarely touch the mouse, and yet navigate faster.
Back ontopic: bundle at least some rudimentary English help files with Opera. Show a tutorial when first starting. And, pop up a chrome bar at the top or bottom of the window showing a random tip of the day.
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I am now starting to use Opera because Firefox does peculiar things to an interface we use at work, and I need a sophisticated browser. But I have to say that Opera has a frightening learning curve, because it is both designed for power users and doesn’t have the huge resources required to do extensive manuals.
Like everyone else, I am trying to fit the learning into a busy schedule which requires a lot of new information to process each day.
So, I think the remarks above about motivation help. Keeping us focused on the fact that the thing can really deliver if we keep at it.
I have a vocab problem too. “What does Opera call this function?” A glossary would help. Best of all, though, would be a simple tagged map, which I could use to investigate the page and its elements. It would interface with the help system, explain the vocab, and enable me to find the pathways to change things.
It may well be that these things already exist, but at the beginning of the journey they don’t seem to – and that is the point.