From kde-core-devel  Thu Nov 22 16:57:00 2007
From: "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:57:00 +0000
To: kde-core-devel
Subject: Re: kwin default window button order.
Message-Id: <200711220957.00514.aseigo () kde ! org>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=119575067214814
MIME-Version: 1
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="--nextPart1255851.rqJ5DkfAly"

--nextPart1255851.rqJ5DkfAly
Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

On Thursday 22 November 2007, Sven Burmeister wrote:
> most people I know

gurk.

a) 'most people i know' does not a usability argument make. few things are =
as=20
annoying as the 'most people i know' comments because everyone knows a=20
different set of people and there is variance between those sets with none =
of=20
them being representative (unless you really know a hell of a lot of people=
=20
in a lot of different peer groups and pay attention to all of their compute=
r=20
behaviour, making it representative)

b) most people do what they've learned given the options available and the=
=20
teaching they received. it says almost nothing about how good the tool or t=
he=20
teacher is. if we simply write to what people do now, we will seriouesly=20
impair any progress towards "better".

the question is if that matters at all, i suppose. i'd suggest that since=20
everyone else's software is also a moving target, practicing "write primari=
ly=20
to what people do today" will end up with kde being attractive to an ever=20
diminishing group of people who used computers between 1984 and 200x. but=20
that's not actually accurate:

truth be told, kde does change ... but it's usually reactive to some other=
=20
desktop software introducing that feature first. so it's ok for them to=20
change and try things, but not us; however, once they try something, then=20
it's good enough fo rus. interesting; why not simply do some things that ma=
ke=20
more sense *before* them in the first place? you know, when it occurs to us=
=20
to do it? obviously we won't have every idea first, but sometimes we do. th=
e=20
times when we've actually gone ahead and done that, it's worked out more=20
often than not. we should practice care and not become a crazy bag of=20
experiments, but we're hardly in danger of becoming anything near that any=
=20
time soon at the current pace of thinking.

yeah, this goes to the core of what i dislike about attitudes in free softw=
are=20
desktop development when it comes to user interface.

=2D-=20
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech

--nextPart1255851.rqJ5DkfAly
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQBHRbTc1rcusafx20MRAv+YAJsFqVqRgDQlcmNrb0zYctreUklfugCcDfSq
r0QqmxiJXd6ZLsFOY53U69o=
=Ljaq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--nextPart1255851.rqJ5DkfAly--