RE: GNOME's Target Markets

[Erik Snoeijs <stratos stratos-online nl>]

On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 10:33 +0100, Murray Cumming wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 03:15 +0100, Erik Snoeijs wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-12-01 at 22:55 +0100, Murray Cumming wrote:
> > > > How many of the people we want to target actually know what an
> > > > "operating system" or a GUI or a "desktop shell" is?
> > > 
> > > On their level, it's a computer. A cool, friendly, beautiful computer that
> > > makes life good. They need computers that have GNOME. They don't need to
> > > explain what a desktop is to their friends as long as they explain that
> > > they have a computer with GNOME and they should too.
> > > 
> > > It's almost as hard to explain what a computer is. But we don't need to.
> > 
> > 
> > Totally agree, and reminds me of a quote.
> > "If you have to explain it, you've already lost" 
> > 
> > The primary thing i miss on the gnome.org main page is visual content.
> > If i look at apple.com or microsoft.com the first thing i see are
> > visuals of there products.
> > 
> > Now the gnome.org page doesn't really lend itself to such visuals i
> > think, but the "GNOME 2.12 is released!" part misses visual content.
> > 
> > a link to a non-prerelease version of davyds
> > http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-12/ page with less tech terms.
> > would be perfect for new interested users to get excited about trying
> > out GNOME. 
> > And a "try it out yourself" link on the bottom of such a page towards
> > the live-cd page would be a great impulse for people to try out that
> > good looking desktop.
> 
> Isn't this exactly what we have here?
> http://www.gnome.org/start/2.12/
> 
> Or are you just suggesting that we should have more pictures on that first page?
> Or that we make that first page part of the what's new section itself? Less clicks, 
> and more visuals on the way, would be good.
> 

indeed as you say, i think the "What's New for Users" page is the most
important page for new users to see, but it's hidden behind lots of text
pages.

If somehow for 2.14 such a page could be listed on the start/2.14/ page
under a heading of "new features" or "Look and See" or something more
eye catching. I think it will help new people get interested in GNOME,
because in my opinion when people are looking at something they heard
about they won't actually be reading the text, more looking at the
pictures and the headlines.




> We can improve it for 2.14, but now is the time to come up with a
> mock-up.

>