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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: The art of not offering customization
From:       "Michael W. Collette" <metrol () metrol ! net>
Date:       2002-05-29 11:16:05
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On Wednesday 29 May 2002 03:01 am, Kristian Koehntopp wrote:
> On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 02:13:02AM -0600, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > as for user levels ala nextstep, that is something that has
> > been discussed time and time again ... it is not the panacea
> > it may appear to be at first.  the interface must simply make
> > sense from the begining, allowing room for the learning curve
> > necessary when using any new system for the first time.
>
> As for the learning, considering my father: I don't think he
> does want to learn. At least not the stuff you want to teach. He
> really isn't interested into unix access permissions, nor into
> KDE styles, nor into artsd, javascript, cups setup or any such
> things.

In all fairness, nobody is suggesting that any end user should need to be 
educated in all those aspects of KDE.  Any operating environment is going to 
have it's share of quirks and oddities.

I've often been fascinated with all the secret key combinations Mac users 
memorize for various actions.  No system in existence today is immune from 
having some learning curve.

> He wants to write letters, so he is interested into setting up
> his printer (done by Yast2, not KDE controlcenter at all -
> another failure).

That's not a failure of KDE, nor is it a usability issue that can reasonably 
be addressed by this list.  KDE does provide a very nice front end to a 
variety of infrastructure issues that are squarely in the realm of the 
distros.

> > really a phantom problem since it seems people rarely go
> > around exploring the file system unless they are actually
> > trying to learn things. or maybe i'm just watching very
> > task-oriented people?
>
> Maybe you are. He (my father) has been asking for documents -
> where are my letters, my templates for letters, my digital
> camera images and so on. He rarely even asks for programs, he
> wants his files and "the things that come up always when I click
> on them". He is using the K menu to start the controlcenter,
> everything else is icons on desktop.

This is a bit of a Pandora's box.  Although KDE does deal with file 
associations quite nicely, it will never get to the point of either Windows 
or Mac... with any luck that is.  On those two other systems, installed 
programs take over, or fight eachother for, the system's associations.

A good case in point on Windows is when you've got RealPlayer, QuickTime, 
Media Player, and WinAmp all installed at the same time.  Every time one of 
these darn things starts, they try to take over who is the default media 
player!  It takes a fair amount of tweaking, sometimes deep in the 
preferences, to get all these applications to live in harmony.

I rather like the fact that this sort of battle for the desktop does not occur 
under KDE regardless of distro.  The down side here is that this requires a 
user to specify associations, which can be darn confusing.  Espcially in an 
environment like Linux where applications don't have names that really 
describe what they do.  For example, if you were looking for a mail checking 
program would it even begin to occur to you to look for Korn?  Had this 
problem with a new user I've been helping along.

> > > There are many more obstacles for him, one of them being all the
> > > "error messages" floating by during the boot process which scare
> > > him a lot, but these do not actually belong on this list.
> >
> > this is conditioning from the windows / mac world where any
> > message at boot is an error message ;-) there are things like
> > the graphical boot screens that can mask this, but quite
> > honestly people should be expected to learn some very basic
> > things about the system they are using.
>
> He does not care at all. If the boot goes well, there is no need
> for the system to bomb him with meaningless "all is well"
> chatter. He only wants to be notified when there is a problem,
> and usually he will then call a technician (me). The messages
> scroll to fast for him to read, anyway, and are in a language
> which is hard for him to read (he was born 1931, and grew up in
> a post-war germany, so he was more concerned with stealing coal
> and potatoes than with learning english).

This is purely a Suse issue.  They probably have the nicest looking boot up 
screen going, but this is being displayed long before KDE gets to make an 
appearance.

I don't disagree with the idea you're presenting.  The thing is, there is a 
limited sphere of control that KDE actually has on the user's total 
experience.

> All he'd need were a percentage ready indicator or something
> like that (and yes, he knows about F5 and F8 in windows boots,
> because I taught him and have repeatedly asked him to read
> messages from these screens when he had windows problems).
>
> This is actually a quite sane attitude. I, too, do not read boot
> messages at all. They are useless. The yellow and red summary
> runlevel indicators Suse Linux provides are useful - they show
> me that, and what, went wrong. The rest can be found in some
> logfile, when I need it.
>
> Why am I pressing this partially offtopic issue? Because it
> illustrates the same point: This is a classical case of TMI -
> too much information (and too much choice, in the case of
> controlcenter). It is nice to have all this stuff, if and when
> you ask for it. It gets in the way - a lot! - when you don't.

Point taken, but there is probably more value within the context of this 
mailing list for usability issues that KDE can have some influence over.  
Boot up screens and printer setups are just way beyond the scope.  At this 
time, they should probably remain so until personel from the various 
distributions also get into active discussion here.

Later on,
-- 
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark 
to read."
 - Groucho Marx
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