[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Localised folders in /home/user (Documents and > Desktop)
From:       Uno Engborg <uno () webworks ! se>
Date:       2006-11-27 18:05:15
Message-ID: 1164650715.19147.81.camel () localhost ! localdomain
[Download RAW message or body]

mån 2006-11-27 klockan 19:27 +1000 skrev David Roberts:
> > We are not building a system for total morons. A "Normal" user can easily
> > learn that when I plug in my USB stick an icon appears on the desktop and
> > that the files can be accessed by clicking the icon. This same user might
> > not care that the URL says /media/MyUSB but it does not hinder him/her. If
> > KDE only would show MyUSB in the URL and a non-KDE application would
> > show /media/MyUSB, that would be really confusing. "Am I editing the same
> > document?"
> I agree, I don't see any real problem with the current system. Most "normal 
> users" don't even look at the location bar, so I don't even see why it's an 
> issue.

You miss the point. Of course it isn't a problem mounting it at /mendia
or whatever other place. As you say yourself, most users would probably
not even look at the location bar. 

The problem is that the user can use the GUI to navigate to /media or
even / by pressing the up arrow. (Should still be possible when showing
hidden files). By being able to browse to media you lose the one to one
relationship between whats on your physical USB stick and how it is
displayed in the GUI.

When I use MacOS-X there are no GUI way to navigate into geek
territories such as /etc, /usr, /usr/bin, /lib, /dev,... and removable
media shows up like small hard drive icons on the desktop when
connected. I don't feel the least hindered by this. If hiding things
that only is there for the sake of Unix isn't a problem on the Mac, why
should it be a problem in KDE.

If I want to change something in MacOS that is too geeky to have a
normal GUI control, I do what I expect most powerusers would do, just
fire up Terminal and do it in vi. It's much quicker than opening a GUI
application such as kate. It even works well on a slow cell phone
connection, and  it have the advantage that I can document my why I made
the change directly in the config file. 

We should not try to invent a poweruser that knows everything on how to
set up a chrooted bind or something equally geeky by directly editing
config files, and at the same time doesn't know how to handle  a  CLI
based text editor or even how to start kate from the CLI. I very much
doubt that this kind of users even exists. Moron users on the other
hand, are quite frequent.

Our normal users will be much more interested in easily finding their
folder with invoices, drawings, pictures, music,... than going to /dev
to find out what devices he might have each and every day. The less we
show of unix related stuff, the easyer it will be for the user to find
these real world kind of things. 

To make it simple for normal users, we need to use clear and unambigous
metaphores. E.g. your file cabinet should never
appear to be the same thing as your desktop, your trash can, This is
why end points (as the were named earlier in this thread) are so
important.

Regards
Uno Engborg







_______________________________________________
kde-usability mailing list
kde-usability@kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]