What is "the metadata"

[roblanf]

code state: f37280d

Perhaps I'm missing some pre-reading here, but in question 1 it's not very clear to me what "the metadata" is referring to.

[roblanf]

Oh I see - I have to click on a 'read more' section under 'definitions'.

I'd suggest either having that expanded by default, or perhaps having a link when you mention "the metadata" which takes you back up the page and expands that section.

[jspaaks]

Hi @roblanf and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. As to expanding the collapsed sections: in earlier versions the page started with all the information expanded (without collapse/expand behavior), but then I got some comments along the lines of "what is this wall of text, I just want to do the checklist". I guess it's not possible to please everybody :).

However, your report corroborates how I think people read these kind of resources:

1. they arrive with a preconceived notion of what the page can do for them (a checklist).
2. they skip over everything until they see the beginning of the checklist, confirming their preconceived notion
   1. As a matter of fact, I think many people don't even start with reading the question text, but instead they start with the answers. They pick the answer that they think best fits their case, then confirm that they understood (guessed) the question correctly.
3. (only) when they run into problems will they back up and see if there is more info that they skipped over which can help them resolve their immediate problem.

So in a way that means that how you ended up using the site is the expected way. I think few people will want to commit to reading through the collapsed sections before they have confirmed that there is some payoff later, so collapsing those sections is the best way to go IMO. However, I think I'll update the text of questions 1 and 2 with some text about "the metadata" and "the software", to point users in the right direction right at the place where they ran into problems (bullet 3 above).