Re: [Usability] Gnome Volume Manager

["Liam R. E. Quin" <liam holoweb net>]

On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 23:19 -0400, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 21:30 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
[...]
> > I would think something like "Gnome Device Manager" might be less
> > confusing.
> 
> It doesn't manage devices.  It only manages disk volumes.  If it managed
> devices, that would mean that it handled things like my mouse, my
> monitor, my printer, and so on.  Talk about ambiguous... ;-)
> 
> Volume does work, however, as the term "volume" has been in use for 20+
> years.

[...]

> The only people every coming across the name are people installing
> stuff from RPMs or source or whatever, and hopefully they're smart
> enough to figure it out.

The term DASD has been in use for direct access storage devices (is that
the right expansion?) for much longer.  Anyone working in an IBM shop
might well say that "DASDI MANAGER" (as it's pronounced) was not a
usability problem, since, after all, its meaning is well known,
and people installing software would be "intelligent enough to
figure it out".

This argument doesn't fly.

An argument that does fly is that it's not the name of a package
anyone would ever install except to satisfy a dependency.

We should be trying to make our computers less intimidating, less
full of jargon where it's not needed, and easier for humans to
integrate into their lives.

Whether this is a good place to do that or not I am not sure, but
please let's all try to take every opportunity to make improvements!

For my own part I think Alan has a good point here.

Thanks

Liam