[Fwd: Re: [Usability]List policy, usability leadership, mission statement [Was: "widget"]]

[Nils Pedersen <n p sun com>]

Hi Luis,

Well I promised myself I wasn't going to get involved with the widget
thread, but since this officially a new thread...

What did Havoc say at the closing speech in Boston? Something like
'why are some technologies/products successful and why are others
not?'

(And then he also started talking about hanging fruit baskets
and desktop market percentages and grasping for oranges, or
something like that)

So if, as Havoc suggested, it is important to grasp the low hanging
fruit of 5% (1) of desktop market we have to look at what attributes
may make GNOME appealing to that potential 5%.

Now I'm not really sure what 5% of the desktop market Havoc was
talking about, so this is where things get hypothetical...

So if I was an IT Manager and I was considering switching my
user over to GNOME, I might have the following (not in any
specific order) questions:

1) How easy will it be to transition my users?
2) Will the major productivity apps also work on other platforms
   (e.g. Windows). Am I locking myself into one platform?
3) TCO ($$$) - will it be cheaper in the long run to switch.
             - software prices
             - hardware $$$
             - manageability, who many sys admins will I need
               how much will I have to pay them?
4)  Does my weird little proprietary (domain specific) application
    work on GNOME?
5)  Etc...

So what's this got to do with usability? Well, as well as the
desktop end user, there are other classes of users that we should
be concerned about:

1) Developer
2) System Administrator

I think these two classes of user are critical to the success of GNOME. If
we don't address their needs we are going to fail. So it would be
nice if:

1) There were CDE/Motif->GNOME and WIN32->GNOME porting guides.
   It was so so easy to port a WIN32 app to GNOME.
2) A developer (and I am not talking GNOME hacker) could write a
    G2.0 app and it would work on on G2.2, and it even would still
    work on G3.0.
3) It was as easy to manage a set of GNOME desktops as it were a set
    of WIN32 ones
4) Etc...

Anyway I'm not trying to say that finishing the HIG isn't important, after
all it primary audience is the developer. I am just saying that there are
other important areas, and classes of users, we need to look at as well.

Nils

(1) And Apple who we all acknowledge probably has the best desktop
user experience around is clinging to its ~5% :)

Luis Villa wrote:

> On Wed, 2002-07-31 at 10:56, Havoc Pennington wrote:
>
>>The concrete tasks probably include:
>>
>> - changes to the HIG; there has to be a process for this, and a clear
>>   maintainer or team who can and does make decisions
>>
>> - UI review for HIG compliance, resulting in filing bugzilla reports
>>
>
> IMHO, ATM, these two are the most important things the UI team can do.
> There must be docs developers and testers can use and refer to /early/
> in the 2.2 development cycle if we're going to get any progress on
> making usability something that GNOME takes to heart.
>
>
>> - user testing
>>
>> - reviewing prior art and/or studies and posting results
>>
>
> Both important but not something, IMHO, that should be focused on until
> basic groundwork is laid with the HIG.
>
>
>>Long threads arguing the merits of XYZ in the abstract, or where
>>everyone posts their vote on what they personally use, are just not
>>useful. I don't think those threads will ever go away, they're a fact
>>of life, and honestly they are fairly harmless.
>>
>
> They're pretty painful for people who don't habitually deal with
> hundreds of pieces of email a day. I'd have no objection making this a
> moderated list, granted that moderators were (1) prompt and (2) utterly
> fair in their moderation. By fair I mean tolerant of dissenting opinion,
> presuming said opinions were phrased constructively and positively.
>
>
>>If we can make UI decisions (instead of punting and making it
>>configurable or whatever), and can communicate those decisions (by
>>documenting them in HIG and bugzilla), then we have something that
>>works.
>>
>
> Agreed. The challenge of leading this team is, IMHO, the biggest problem
> facing GNOME right now- we want to move forward on usability of the
> desktop, the hackers need guidance and help, and no guidance and help is
> forthcoming.
>
> So... if everyone is going to have their two cents... give that two
> cents on the subject of 'how to organize gnome usability.' :) It's
> important. Really. Not like widgets. :)
>
> Luis
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