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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Delete, move and merge kedit, kate and kwrite
From:       Lauri Watts <lauri () kde ! org>
Date:       2003-02-18 8:22:08
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On Tuesday 18 February 2003 02.39, david mattatall wrote:
> On February 17, 2003 04:43 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

> Ok, I agree, but in the kmenu they all have (Text Editor) beside
> them...which could also be considered redundent since they are in the
> "Editors" submenu.

So, how about this:
KEdit (Simple Text Editor)
KWrite (Advanced Text Editor)
Kate (Programmers IDE) 

Admittedly I'm not happy with that last one - Kate is much more than just a 
programers tool, and programmers are no the only users. 

The point is, the descriptions would just take ohhh, 3 or 4 days of arguing on 
this list to settle on them, and then about 30 seconds to actually change in 
CVS so that the next release of KDE uses them.

> On February 17, 2003 04:50 pm, Lauri Watts wrote:

> > Oh? Then why is it whenever we try to remove one of them, dozens of
> > people wade in with reasons why they like having all three available.
>
> Dozens? What about the thousands of others that use KDE? I mean should we
> allow a vocal minority of users (myself included) to control the direction
> of such a large project without question?

Frankly, yes. What else can we do?  Especially when the vocal minority in 
question happen to be the developers who are working on the project.  

Doing some usability testing with real world users is the only other option, 
and one that's patently difficult to pull off with a project of such a 
distributed user.  Put your friends and family to use - as Aaron pointed out, 
you don't necessarily have to sit people down in front of your KDE computer, 
just write single tasks down on a piece of paper, and have them explain what 
they think.  Write down exactly what they say (and everything they say, if 
you can, try to avoid paraphrasing.)  Report it back here.  You dont have to 
ask fifteen people, even 4 or 5 is often enough to pinpoint real problems.

> Thank you for the comments, I will take them to heart. Please note I am
> only 17 and therefore, I don't know any better :)

In open source, age is a state of mind.  Don't use it as an excuse (but don't 
fear, we will, if you get cheeky :)  But seriously, your age isn't an issue 
if you're doing useful work, although it can give an interesting twist to 
your observations, as can things like cultural background and native 
language.  It's just a data point though, not something to worry about.

Regards,
-- 
Lauri Watts
KDE Documentation: http://i18n.kde.org/doc/
KDE on FreeBSD: http://freebsd.kde.org/

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