Re: Why dont you guys ask the users what we want?

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

"unknown unknown" <segakid hotmail com> writes:
> Before you start on the OO interface redesign, why dont you discuss
> them in public on slashdot with the users?
> 

Of course we should go out and figure out what users want and
need. But we have to be careful about how we figure it out.

A slashdot poll has two biases that make it extremely unscientific:

 - highly self-selected sample of highly atypical users

 - relies on conscious introspection instead of observation  

One wants to know what can be _observed_ and _measured_ to work better
for 99% of users, not what the .01% of technical users who read
slashdot _say_ works better.

By "unscientific" here I don't mean the /. poll might be slightly
wrong. I mean it might be completely and totally misleading.

It's fine to run a poll, as long as this grain of salt is involved.

Havoc