Re: gnome app pages (was confusingly Gnome Software Map)

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006 04:15:04 +1000
Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> wrote:

> I started on this thread by suggesting that we're approaching the
> problem the wrong way. I'm still saying it. Does your Mum want a
> software map? Mine doesn't. Mine wants to know more about "Tomboy"
> when her friend tells her about it, and wants to find out about the
> cool new things in GNOME, and if there is another way of doing her
> email. She wants to know if there is a project management program for
> her GNOME laptop. She wants to know how to add cool new backgrounds
> and panel applets. She wants to tell the Evolution developers that
> they rock, and file bugs on her file manager. She wants to know where
> to send my brother when he decides he wants to work on software.
>
> "Software Map" is not the right way to approach these problems, and
> it's not the right way to get things our users care about on the page.

Funny. IMHO, somebody who's interested in a thing called 'Tomboy', who
has friends who talk about things like 'Tomboy', and who is interested
in project management software, and who does all the other things you
describe, is a computer enthusiast; not an ordinary user.

And an enthusiast *is* going to use a software map like the one
provided by gnomefiles.org, maybe to find the project homepages for
additional tasks; so a software map seems to be a perfect way to
approach these problems. ;-)

No ordinary user is going to visit gnomefiles but they are also also
not going to use wgo because they are unlikely to have a clue what
GNOME is. (They are more likely to search for something called
'Linux').

Most users who are likely to visit wgo are probably happy with the
screenshot tour, a link to gnomefiles, and links to some other project
homepages. Even if some ordinary users come to wgo every now and then,
these things are probably sufficient for their information needs as
well.

I'm not saying, some more pages to describe GNOME's products make no
sense; just in case some people are *really* curious -- but these pages
are not *that* important.

However, *how* we present these information seems to be a different
discussion, given that we obviously have no agreement about use cases
for wgo, yet, nor a new proposal for its menu structure.


Cheers,
Claus