Usability (was Re: Yelp)

[Daniel Carrera <dcarrera math toronto edu>]

I think that there's a big usability problem in GNOME.  It stems
from the lack of appropriate names for the gnome apps and utils.  Think
about a new user confronted with the following names.  Could he/she guess
what the app was?"

*  Yelp.
*  Everybudy.
*  Evolution.
*  Gnumeric.

You see my point.

As documentation writers, we are trying to make GNOME accessible to
people.  Usability issues concerns us very much.  No ammount of
documentation can compensate for a flawed design.

I'm not saying that we should name everything "GMail", "GSpread_Sheet",
"GInternet_Chatting_Program", etc.  In fact, I think that this would be
about as bad.  It would make GNOME look silly and unprofessional. However,
we should pick somewhat sensible names.  For instance, "Abiword" and
"Sketch" are very informative names.

I can just imagine a new user struggling to figure out GNOME out.  He
keeps looking around the main menu for some help.  If he only knew that
all his answers lay behind the entry that says "Yelp"...

I know that it's too late to change the name "Evolution" or "Gnumeric",
but can we still change the name "Yelp"?  What is wrong with "Help
Browser".  Sure the name has been used.  Can't we update the app and keep
the name?  I think we should.

Just my opinion of course.

Cheers,
Daniel.


On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Christian Rose wrote:

> tis 2002-01-29 klockan 22.55 skrev Daniel Carrera:
> > Quick question:
> >
> > Is "Yelp" the actual name of the documentation browser?  Is that what I
> > should call it?  What does it stand for?
> >
> > Daniel.
>
> "Yelp" is the actual name, yes. If I remember correctly it doesn't stand
> for anything, but using English pronounciation, "Yelp" is pronounced
> like the Swedish word for "help": "hjälp".
>
>
> Christian
>
>