Re: [Usability] Technical language in applet menus

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

> On 5/7/05, Tom Conneely <tom conneely gmail com> wrote:
> > Just one small thing, the lock screen applet (I'm using 2.6.8, I
> > apologise if this has already been dealt with) contains some technical
> > spiel:
> > 1. "Kill screensaver Daemon"
> > 2. "Restart screensaver Daemon"
> >
> > To a non-technical user kill sounds intimidating and destructive and
> > they probably have no idea what a daemon is.

Even some technical users fail to realise that this lock doesn't allow
them to squat at the same computer all day and hog the scarce computing
facilities as they risk data loss when disgruntled people forced to wait
around reset the X Server using Ctrl+Alt+Backspace but that is a whole
other story.

> > I am going to submit a bug about this but first I wanted suggestions
> > about alternate text, and people to post any other similar problems in
> > applet menus they have spotted

On Sat, 7 May 2005, Mystilleef wrote:

> 1). Stop screensaver process
> 2). Restart screensaver process
>
> This is assuming the term "process" is familiar enough to most computer users.

Rather than the take the straighfoward approach of fixing the symptoms
like I would normally try I have to ask why a normal user would ever want
to know about "Killing the Screenserver Daemon" or any of the other
features except "Activate Screensaver".

Now that you have drawn my attention, it is terribly confusing to have the
applet described in the menus Lock applet rather than something like
Screensaver and to also have a menu item for "Lock"  (to Panel, lock in
postion).

Off the top of my head (dont hold me to this later) I would go for
something like "Screensaver only" rather than activate screensaver, and I
would entirely remove the options to kill and restart the screensaver but
make sure to document the all the necessary information for users having
problems but hopefully a wise developer could improve this all to "Just
work".

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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