Re: [Fwd: Nautilus]

[Reinout van Schouwen <reinouts gnome org>]

Hi Shane,

Op Thu, 22 Dec 2005 09:38:52 +0000, schreef Shane O'Connor:

> I don't think I was completely clear - I didn't mean to imply a coporate
> or commercial view point. I was talking with desktop adoption by all
> users in mind...

Sorry I misunderstood that part then, but still- adoption by *all* users
cannot be our goal. We, like no others, should know that innovation in
user interfaces happens most when there are multiple options to choose
from. 

Realistically speaking, it will be hard enough to attain our 10% by
2010 goal.

> I agree, but we have to have a focus and I assume we want people to
> adopt the platform. As windoze is the biggest market player

(A small request: please stop intentionally misspelling 'Windows'. It
doesn't help with making this thread appear as a grown-up discussion.)

> I also assume those users would be in our target audience.

Yes, those users certainly shouldn't be ignored. However let's face it: to
someone for whom familiarity with the Windows UI is of primary concern, I
would advise a KDE-based desktop without blinking. This is not something
GNOME excels at, and we shouldn't want to either IMHO.

> As it happens a lot of the feedback I've had on nautilus spatial mode is
> from friends and friends of friends who I've managed to introduce to
> Gnome - most are pretty clued in users and in some cases experienced
> programmers and pretty much all of them agree that spatial mode is way
> more confusing to new users.

This is almost too easy, but, what makes you think that experienced
users and programmers have any reliable idea whatsoever about what is and
is not confusing to new users?

I think everyone on this list, myself included, has way too much
preconceptions about the way computers work, to be able to say anything
conclusive about that.

> To be honest I can't see any total newbies preferring spatial to browser
> but as I don't have any data or experience to back that up I could be
> way wrong ;)

I am trying not to get entangled in a rehash of the spatial vs.
navigational arguments, but I would like to know if you read the articles
I link to and if they made you think about at spatial mode in a different
way?

regards,

-- 
Reinout van Schouwen