[Usability] Re: [Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

["Timothy D. Witham" <wookie osdl org>]

On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 12:38 -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 12/13/05, Mike Shaver <shaver mozilla org> wrote:
> > But if it Just Works, then users don't have to go in there until they
> > are into the (possibly-perpetual) "intermediate" stage.  You can use
> > a biohazard symbol next to the Edit->Preferences menu item if you want.
> >
> > Is user adoption being hampered on a large scale by a lack of print
> > options, or the polish in those print options?  It seems like an odd
> > thing to spend a lot of energy on, but I will freely concede that I
> > have spent very very little time studying barriers to Linux desktop
> > adoption.
> 
> I think some of what I'm trying to express is in line with what you're saying:
> 
>  - my big question on the PPD stuff would not be "is there an advanced tab" but
>    "is there anything important that's relegated to the advanced tab instead
>    of being somewhere better" - who really cares if there's an advanced tab
> 
    Maybe this is mainly an issue of how people perceive the responses
things
that aren't implemented. (Assuming that the options will eventually be
implemented.)
 
>  - the idea with metacity was *not* to avoid having a huge prefs
> dialog; the idea was to have
>    the defaults be such that many people wouldn't need to go into the
> prefs dialog.

    This is a good approach.  I guess the issue that some of us have
is that we used to be able to and it hasn't been put back in as of
yet.   Hopefully this is just a transition issue.

>    I took an inflammatory approach to this, because I felt that open
> source developers
>    would never code anything the "hard" way if they could just stick
> in a pref as a workaround
>    (e.g., if you take a patch to add a "lines in the compose box"
> setting, you will never
>    get the patches for "open in new window" or "automatically resize
> with the browser"),
>    but that was just my personal tactic since I like to stir shit up.
>    This is why I bounced a lot of patches that *added a pref*, vs.
> bouncing patches that
>    *exposed a pref in the UI*, two subtly different things.
>    I'd claim that my approach did work for getting quite a few "fix
> the root cause" patches
>    and bug reports I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, but I admit it
> had the downside of
>    pissing people off. So, something to be learned from that experiment.
> 
>  - I don't think it matters much that Firefox has a lot of prefs or
> not. I do think it matters
>    what's on the default toolbar, and that it has popup blocking and tabs.
>    Extensions are a nice release valve, very smart.
> 
> > (If you're after the enterprise route to adoption, though, I'd
> > suggest putting "usability" on the back burner in favour of
> > administration tools and checklist features, jammed in at whatever
> > pref-panel complexity is required.  The competition in that space is
> > not successful because of great usability, possibly because the
> > people who make the purchase decision are not the people who use the
> > purchased product all day.)
> 
> I agree completely, this is in line with my experience. Designing for
> enterprise purchasing committees results in horrifying software, but
> said software sells better to enterprises than what I would call
> "good" software. "good" is a relative term and sometimes Sarbox is
> more important than whether I want to stab myself in the eye while I'm
> using an application ... ;-)
> 
> Havoc
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Desktop_architects mailing list
> Desktop_architects lists osdl org
> https://lists.osdl.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop_architects
-- 
Timothy D. Witham - Chief Technology Officer - wookie osdl org
Open Source Development Lab Inc - A non-profit corporation
12725 SW Millikan Way - Suite 400 - Beaverton OR, 97005
(503)-906-1911  (office)    (503)-702-2871   (cell)
(503)-626-2436  (fax)