Re: New module proposal: LightDM

[Robert Ancell <robert ancell gmail com>]

> I also want to say something slightly off-topic regarding "impulse to
> change".  A lot of users hate when things they use get changed.  It
> screws up their workflows, etc, and so many changes are controversial.
>  Often there's a gut reaction "can you provide a way for me get things
> back to the old way from the new way".  I'm sure a lot of people on
> this list know what I'm talking about. For some reason, that same
> impulse doesn't seem as strong when users change to different
> functionally similar apps.  What I mean is, it's not okay if App A
> changes the way something works or removes a feature, but if App B
> never provided that feature in the first place then the user may
> switch from App A to App B and be quite happy (even though App B
> completely changes their workflows!)  I've never understood this, but
> I've seen it happen a lot (not talking about LightDM and GDM in
> particular here, just an off topic side note)

My guess on this is if App B significantly improves their experience
then users don't worry too much about features that have gone.  App
A+1 is like an App B but without the step change in improvement and so
users are more critical of removals.  Perhaps the only solution as a
module maintainer is to only allow removals with major improvements
(almost impossible if you do a major refactoring).  I certainly hit
this problem in gcalctool...