Re: Nautilus 2.6 - We're going all spatial

[Jens Knutson <jensknutson yahoo com>]

On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 02:27, Eugenia Loli-Queru wrote:

> > 2) Almost anybody who's noisy is an enthusiast. You are assuming just
> > because 1000 people complained this indicates that pretty much all your
> > population loves navigation model.
> 
> When this complain was happening (1999-2000), BeOS was in its hey day: it
> had more than 150,000 users. Sure, it is not many compared to OSX's 7
> millions of users, but it is a good and _clear_ sample of what the majority
> wanted.

No, it's what a sample of what the majority of *vocal* users wanted.  I
think you're greatly over-estimating the number of users who participate
in forums and email lists vs. the total number of users for a given
desktop.  Again, see Seth's bit about "self-selection bias" - just
because a user has an opinion about a piece of software doesn't mean
you'll ever hear from that user.  Most computer users have no idea how
to complain about or praise the software they use, and even if they did,
they probably wouldn't know who to talk to!  Thus, it is really only
fair to say "BeOS's *enthusiasts* hated this." and not "the majority of
BeOS's *entire userbase* hated this."

> BTW, I would really need an answer on my previous question: I need more info
> of how OO Nautilus can improve my productivity overall. That's what really
> matters at the end of the day. We use computers to do our job faster and
> better, aren't we?

First, the navigation model isn't going away, so you'll still have your
power-user productivity.  Secondly, OO *is* about productivity.  Users
who are confused by the abstractions of the browser model could become
more productive as a result of these changes.

 - jck

-- 
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man."

 - George Bernard Shaw