From kde-pim  Sun Mar 21 20:31:35 2010
From: "Dr. Robert Marmorstein" <robert () narnia ! homeunix ! com>
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:31:35 +0000
To: kde-pim
Subject: Re: [Kde-pim] jargon is bad! :)
Message-Id: <201003211631.35633.robert () narnia ! homeunix ! com>
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I think the idea that jargon is bad doesn't take into account the modern=20
approach to information lookup.  I may not know what Akonadi is at first=20
glance, but it is a LOT easier to Google for Akonadi than for something mor=
e=20
generic like "e-mail storage proxy".  It may be jargon, but it actually mak=
es=20
error messages EASIER to parse, not harder.  I think, at least for error=20
messages, it's more important to be technically accurate than to make the u=
ser=20
interface seem polished. =20

In the long run, if we are successful in promoting Kontact, terms like Akon=
adi=20
will cease to be jargon and will become accepted parts of the vocabulary (l=
ike=20
Kleenex). =20

My two cents,

Robert

On Sunday 21 March 2010 1:57:40 pm Ingo Kl=F6cker wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 March 2010, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > hi ...
> >=20
> > first: apologies for the cross posting. at least you can see that it
> > isn't - just- your projects that suffer from the issue below, though
> > ;)
> >=20
> > ok, so the point of this email is to note the obvious: displaying
> > jargon to the user is bad. the average computer user does not know
> > what "compositing", "akonadi" or "nepomuk" are. they do understand
> > what "desktop effects"[1], "personal information service"[2] or
> > "search service" is.
>=20
> Akonadi is worse than "personal information service", but the latter
> still is part of a domain specific language most users won't understand.
>=20
> In my experience nobody knows what "personal information" is supposed to
> be. Quite frankly, if I wouldn't know what "personal information" (in
> the context of PIM) means I'd read it as "information about my person".
> Maybe that's a language barrier thing.
>=20
> (FWIW, Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for "personal information" which
> IMHO is a good indicator for a term that is not a widely known.)
>=20
> Unfortunately, I don't know a better term. :-(
>=20
>=20
> Regards,
> Ingo

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