Developers vs Grandmas

"Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" johannbg at hi.is
Fri Oct 24 10:28:23 UTC 2008


Luis Felipe Marzagao wrote:
> Exactly! It's clear it's not in the project objective to alter 
> upstream software. And in fact I agree it shouldn't be!
>
> The trouble is the end-user doesn't even know what upstream means. In 
> fact, I think the end-user won't even want to know what it means, as 
> long as the system is running fine. For him, Fedora is an operating 
> system. And the GNOME example is very good for this matter. There are 
> somethings that don't imply altering the core of upstream projects in 
> order to make the "out of the box" user experience more happy :)
>
> A single line, for example, could improve the user experience when 
> entering GNOME on Fedora:
>
> gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true
>
> Bingo! A single line (maybe with some other adjustments) in any 
> rc.local file or any other place specifically designded by Fedora 
> Project should make the end-user experience a lot better. And it does 
> not require any upstream intervention or any opinion change by GNOME 
> upstream team. And is very simple to maintain. And that's it, the 
> end-user would enter Fedora for the first time and would not complain 
> about a zilion windows opening every time he clicks on a folder.
>
> It's just an example, but my point is there are small things that 
> makes the user experience better and does not require huge changes on 
> coding. I think this is the kind of problem Fedora Project should pay 
> attention to, as you adequately put.
>
I agree 100% here.

There are bunch of little things we could do to make Fedora more user 
friendly to the end-user.
( Actually basing on my own experience with end-users Gnome has begun 
going backwards on usability
it has become so simple that is hard to use. End users expect certain 
options, buttons to be there along
with hints if uncertain of how to do things )

Gather faq statistics from the Fedora forum and #fedora channel and 
address those issues.
( if possible ).

It also has to be realized that developers are end-users too and if 
Fedora does not make
good enough first impression to them, how can the project expect them to 
get involved?

Best regards
                   Johann B.




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