Re: [Usability] Overthinking things.

[Lincoln Yeoh <lyeoh pop jaring my>]

At 07:34 PM 12/9/2009, kerberos piestar net wrote:
> I do not think it's so much that users do not volunteer their
> experiences, rather than they are largely not welcome.
>
> The main issue with the community is that they are emotionally
> invested in Linux and the resulting movement so see criticism of it as
> criticism of themselves (and take it personally) causing most attempts
> at honest feedback to result in a flamewar - through no real fault of
> anyones.

I think in many cases having/requiring the user/"bug" submitter 
"talk" directly to the developer may not be the best way of doing 
things. And instead someone else should be between the two.

For example, I've seen users being asked to split their bug reports 
into multiple bugs.

If the system requires users to convert a _valid_ "stuff is broken" 
report into multiple bug reports, before broken stuff gets fixed, 
then it just makes things less likely to be fixed. The users might 
actually have alternatives they can use, so they go away and stuff 
stays broken. The developer may feel that's fine with him/her, but it 
does not help the project.

Thus I don't think it's the user's job to do that. Nor do I think the 
end developer should be doing that. It takes up valuable developer 
time. And a developer might say "25% of what you're complaining about 
is Developer A's job to fix, go bother him, 50$ is Developer B's, go 
bother her, I'll fix my 25%, but I can only do that after they fix 
their bits first". The developer might even say "If you want your bug 
fixed, go fix your bug report first, otherwise stuff is not going to 
be fixed". And all of that might be very valid. Just not helpful to 
the project.

So I suggest that this sort of thing is best done by someone else.

Similarly, there are developers who'd say "WORKSFORME" to usability 
complaints. While that's usually true (it works great for the 
developer if there are a fair number of users complaining about it, 
it might be worth fixing. It's not worth fixing for the developer - 
already works fine for the developer (of course :) ), but worth 
fixing for the project. After all "WORKSFORME" is not always the same 
as "INSANELYGREAT"[1].

So it is better that the users talk/grumble to someone who is NOT a 
developer. Then that someone after some thought and maybe even 
discussion (big picture, priorities, removing duplicates etc, 
ignoring invalid stuff), comes up with stuff that is more developer 
oriented. That someone could also translate developer speak into user 
speak and vice versa :).

That someone should also have some way of forcing the developer to do 
some stuff. It's not pleasant, but it's often necessary. Because I've 
heard of developers who have initially thought certain things weren't 
worth fixing, "WORKSFORME" etc, but after being forced to, they 
realized later that the resulting product is better overall, far more polished.

The other thing is, much of the feedback generally just means more 
work for the developer. There's always more work and bugs to fix. So 
what the developer actually works on in the end might not always be 
in the long term strategic interest of the final "product" - the 
developer might be just too busy "keeping head above water", or be 
too busy doing something the developer finds really cool ;).

Whereas someone else might be more objective and strategic about 
setting the priorities of what to fix first/next.

Developers might not be happy to be forced to do stuff they initially 
find pointless, but it might just be necessary. Might not be easy to 
convince unpaid developers though... Not impossible I think - some 
OSS project leaders seem to manage it.

Perhaps I'm wrong about how to fix stuff, but I suspect many of you 
have seen "user vs developer" bug reports which clearly won't get 
anywhere despite there being a valid problem somewhere (just not a 
valid/acceptable bug report for whatever reason...).

Link.

[1] The display scrolling on many phones works OK (functional etc), 
but they're typically not as good as the scrolling on the iphone - 
which is "no tear", very smooth (no jerkiness) and very low latency - 
so much so that it feels more like an extension of the user's body 
than part of a phone. I suggest that people are more likely to put up 
with flaws in their body than flaws in their phone. Do note also that 
there's a difference between "cool/fancy tricks/UIs" and "extension 
of body". Just getting your windows to wobble doesn't automatically 
make them feel part of you.