Re: first time user experiences

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

seth vidal <skvidal phy duke edu> writes: 
> 1. evolution does "odd" things when you setup an imap server for your
> mail via their mail setup druid. You get this error about evo not being
> able to make a shortcut b/c you haven't typed in your password, of
> course you have never been given the option to type in a password so..
> Then once in evo the only way to see the imap server in your list of
> folders is to exit and reload it. - this is TERRIBLY counterintuitive to
> a user who has just setup that server.

Let's get this one in bugzilla.ximian.com against evo, unless Jeremy
thinks it's something we broke in our package.

> 2. The Galeon First-time druid appears to be fubared b/c of something
> having to do with glade - I'm going to look into that in more detail -
> otherwise galeon's setup is TERRIBLY intuitive and really quite
> friendly, imo.

Another one for bugzilla (this time probably Red Hat bugzilla, since
I'm assuming upstream doesn't see this).

> 3. It might be friendlier to have the default icon size for the menus be
> larger. As well the default font in the terminal should probably be 1.
> bigger 2. bolder - its almost painfully hard to read at times.

Bigger font results in something that won't fit in 800x600 and people
complain about it - I've tried putting in that change before. Bolder
isn't really possible without just using the bold variant - we don't
have much flexibility in the fonts that come with X. The bold variants
are too bold (and then bold text isn't visible).

I also want black-on-faded-yellow as the default colors, but people
really whine about that one. ;-)

Anyway, maybe we can figure out a better default font; last time I
tried though I couldn't get something attractive that worked
reasonably on all resolutions. Feel free to suggest fonts.

> 4. The default theme of sawfish in red hat linux is, umm, cool clean.
> And it is umm, well completely horrible. I've been pushing for a better
> less sucky theme for AT LEAST 3 versions of red hat linux and I think it
> is finally here in the crux theme for sawfish. Please make it the new
> default.

I don't like putting in haphazard fancy graphics, because they all
have to go together (icons, splash screen, Nautilus, background,
fonts, GTK theme, etc.).

If you just put in the coolest theme for GTK, for Sawfish, for
Nautilus, snazziest background image, etc. - then it looks like a
crappy mish-mash of incompetence. Believe me I've tried and I was
incompetent. ;-)

(The shortest path to everything looking roughly the same right now is
to use the Nautilus GNOME-like theme instead of Nautilus crux theme,
so then Crux Sawfish theme doesn't match anything at all. Mozilla and
Qt apps are also important targets for looking similar, and we use the
Mozilla vaguely-GTK-like theme by default instead of the more
attractive Modern theme as well.)
 
Secondly, I really hate the idea of frequently changing the default
look in radical ways, because it confuses people.

Thirdly, we want relatively resource-friendly default themes.

Fourthly, I don't think the window manager borders should be the thing
on the screen that draws your eye; the apps should be the interesting
bit. Same for background and so on. Thus the stripped-down look of
7.2.

So the end conclusion of that: we're waiting until we can get a
graphic artist to revamp the whole look in a coherent way, and at that
point the thing will look nicer. I don't yet have an estimate of when
that will happen.

Until then I want to keep to solid colors and such that engineers
can't screw up too badly, and also the standard GTK/GNOME look that
most apps seem to support.

> 5. Galeon should DEFINITELY supplant mozilla as the default web browser
> on the panel. - the widget set is consistent and makes sense.

I think native widgets just aren't a key thing for average users
trying to get work done. It's more important to power users. 
Galeon also has some power user features highly visible in the menus, 
such as stuff about cookies and image animation and JavaScript.
And I think the tabs are a power user feature.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that - power users know how
to find Galeon. But it's not the right default.

Oh, another problem is that people expect browsers to handle mail and
news and composer and all that. Yeah, I know. No, you can't fight the
system. ;-)

> 6. if there is a way - and currently I do not know of one - of providing
> some "Default config sets" so that you can choose some "global themes"
> like the wizard in kde2's startup lets you do it would dramatically
> improve the functionality for new users.

I believe the "metatheme" module Richard is working on in CVS allows
theme bundles. However, I don't like the KDE startup wizard; it
markets the desktop at the expense of what the user is trying to
do. It only makes sense if the reason you bought the operating system
is to pick a cool theme.

Presumably you bought the OS to do something useful. So a sensible
startup wizard would have things like:
 
 Is this machine a:
   [ ] web server
   [ ] developer workstation
   [ ] mail server

blah blah, and maybe ask for other info from there, e.g. let you
configure Apache or add desktop links to development tools.  That
startup wizard would be useful.

Bottom line, if I bought a web server, I don't expect to log in the
first time and be asked what theme I prefer. It's just _bizarre_. It
only makes sense for a consumer desktop OS, if that (how can you pick
a theme if you've never used the computer and don't know what a theme
is?).

Anyway, I have a strong view that the startup wizard about themes is
bogus from a UI standpoint. If you see one in Red Hat Linux, it'll be
because I lost the argument to someone else. ;-)

> I brought up some of these things b/c I'm looking at what some of my
> users will be seeing and hoping to make some changes to make things more
> usable for people in general. Any suggestions on how to solve some of
> these or comments on if these things are moronic are gladly taken.

I think the larger usability issues to focus on are:

 - default panel menu is crap; see the new proposal from the UI
   project going in to GNOME 2
 - far too many control panels (and excessive configurability in general)
 - speed/performance/stability

etc. - most of these are being aggressively addressed for GNOME 2.


Anyhow, my opinions. Several other Red Hat employees disagree with
much of the above though, so don't feel doomed if you think I'm
insane. ;-)

Havoc