more helping [LWN.net]

more helping

Posted Nov 7, 2011 9:22 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091)
In reply to: GNOME != Fedora by clump
Parent article: Rawhide gets GNOME Shell for all display types

About free software users should do more helping and less complaining: Of course! But you are forgetting something: complaining is the most useful form of helping.

For each user that complains there are 100 that avoid your software like the plague. If you don't listen, users get frustrated and angry. That is the most valuable lesson your users can give you.

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more helping

Posted Nov 7, 2011 9:49 UTC (Mon) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (17 responses)

"complaining is the most useful form of helping".

Er, no. It isn't. It's the least useful for of helping, and if takes the form of the rant-fests we've seen on lwn recently, it's actually worse than silently stopping to use the software. A bug report is useful. A suggestion on a forum or a mailing is useful. Triaging existing bug reports is useful. Helping out with writing stuff for the website is useful. Donating money so developers can get together is useful. Complaining is not. It doesn't motivate, it doesn't bring any new information to the table -- someone doesn't like my program? Well, it's hardly likely to appeal to everyone, and I made it like this for a reason.

Stop and look around

Posted Nov 7, 2011 10:06 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (5 responses)

You are forgetting that it is your current users who are doing the complaining, not random passers-by. Their complaints should be enough to rethink your reasons for doing things.

Of course you would prefer if they were doing your designated job (the tasks you enumerate), but sometimes it is more useful to take a step back and look around than going further along the same way. Widespread criticism looks like a good moment.

Stop and look around

Posted Nov 7, 2011 11:30 UTC (Mon) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

That still doesn't make complaining "the most useful form of helping" -- even if it's the current userbase, it's still the least useful form of helping.

And as soon as complaining turns into a rantfest, like we've seen so many of, it's still actively harmful. If a current user tells me "I hate what you did, I hate you for having done it, I think you're a blinking idiot for having done it", that that is in no way a useful contribution to the project, and it wouldn't all motivate me to go back on my decisions within the project. So it's distracting, impolite, improductive, hurtful and not helpful.

And whether criticism is actually widespread or just seems widespread because the same people are echoing their bile and spite on as many web forums as they can does make a difference. I've had one user post the same uninformed rant about Krita on at least three forums. He was stupid, or lazy, so he cut and pasted, which made the pattern very clear. But it's amazing how much time people can spend on their rants all over the place.

Stop and look around

Posted Nov 22, 2011 4:24 UTC (Tue) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link] (3 responses)

You are forgetting that the rationale of the current set of GNOMEs is that the current and previous users don't actually matter.

They are crufty, grumpy old beards. Kernel hacker types.

GNOME doesn't want those users. They want to configure silly things like the font size on their desktop. They think that launching an application should take a single click.

With the new Gnome shell interface millions of new users will suddenly be attracted to GNOME and Linux. It's market share will explode as a result of all the locked-down 3D goodness.

From my point of view I think it is funny. Those that want those things are already on OS X. GNOME will wither and die.

The interesting part is what takes it's place. XFCE?

Stop and look around

Posted Nov 22, 2011 17:27 UTC (Tue) by juliank (guest, #45896) [Link] (2 responses)

> They think that launching an application should take a single click.

That's possible in GNOME 3, in GNOME 2 you needed at least two clicks or three + n keypressed. In GNOME3, you need one click for favourites, two for others, and zero clicks and 1 + n keypresses if you want keyboard only.

Stop and look around

Posted Nov 23, 2011 18:50 UTC (Wed) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link] (1 responses)

What?

In GNOME 2 I can put as many launchers in my panel as I like. And I don't need to wait for some stupid overlay to animate onto the screen.

And keyboard shortcuts exist in GNOME 2, so don't pretend GNOME 3 is a win there.

Stop and look around

Posted Nov 23, 2011 19:19 UTC (Wed) by juliank (guest, #45896) [Link]

> In GNOME 2 I can put as many launchers in my panel as I like.

Yeah, I forgot those, I didn't really use those.

> And I don't need to wait for some stupid
> overlay to animate onto the screen.

Wait? It's there almost immediately, basically as soon as the key is released.

> And keyboard shortcuts exist in GNOME 2,
> so don't pretend GNOME 3 is a win there.

Same in GNOME 3.

more helping

Posted Nov 7, 2011 12:28 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (7 responses)

it's actually worse than silently stopping to use the software

No it isn't. I'm pretty sure I already mentioned this, but there was an interesting article I read not that long ago where some hotel executive pointed out that the worst thing for someone providing a service is the customer just leaving and deciding never to come back, because at that point the customer no longer sees the point in complaining.

Complaining is an act to try and rectify a situation, often because the customer actually wants to continue the relationship. Running a business and wondering where all the customers went requires some good guesswork to get people back through the doors and to avoid the failure of the business.

Complaining is not. It doesn't motivate, it doesn't bring any new information to the table -- someone doesn't like my program? Well, it's hardly likely to appeal to everyone, and I made it like this for a reason.

That's an acceptable attitude to have if you don't need users, of course. If someone told me they didn't like my software, I'd point them to the code and tell them to get on with it. But I think my software is a bit different from the kinds of large projects that are continually trying to whip up enthusiasm, support and usage where one would think that a degree of popularity might be advantageous.

One can, of course, decide that some users/customers just aren't important because there'll be more along in a moment. I'm not sure that this is a good way of building trust in a project/product, however.

This is attitude Apple is using - and they DO have users, strangely enough...

Posted Nov 7, 2011 16:09 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (6 responses)

That's an acceptable attitude to have if you don't need users, of course.

Nope. The people who constantly complain rarely bring new users. People who like the what you are doing and offer some constructive suggestions instead of self-righteous demands often bring them.

But I think my software is a bit different from the kinds of large projects that are continually trying to whip up enthusiasm, support and usage where one would think that a degree of popularity might be advantageous.

Yes, having enthusiastic users is very advantageous, but acting on rant-fests rarely help. If you fix one thing these people will just find something else to complain. This spiral never ends and so you just continue to do more and more stuff which had nothing to do with your plans and which affects very few users.

One can, of course, decide that some users/customers just aren't important because there'll be more along in a moment. I'm not sure that this is a good way of building trust in a project/product, however.

For GNOME-like project? It's the only way. Very small percentage of GNOME users are programmers. That means that they can not fix things themselves and rely on project developers for that. Things you need to fix first are things which affect biggest number of people - but there are very poor correlation between number of complains and number of users. Every time Unity is mentioned someone raises the "selection follows mouse" question - but in reality there are so few users who use that option it's not even funny. Combine it with the design which makes said option pretty hard to use and solution becomes obvious.

This is attitude Apple is using - and they DO have users, strangely enough...

Posted Nov 7, 2011 17:01 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (4 responses)

That's an acceptable attitude to have if you don't need users, of course.
Nope. The people who constantly complain rarely bring new users.

I don't see how what you say follows from what I wrote: if your software works a particular way because that's what you prefer yourself, you can ignore any feedback on that topic. If you're just sharing things on a "take it or leave it" basis, you don't need to care about getting new users. For some projects having fewer users is arguably better because it means that developers don't need to spend their scarce amounts of time doing things that other people want.

That kind of project is not the same as a GNOME-type project because the two kinds of projects are structured and sustained in completely different ways.

One can, of course, decide that some users/customers just aren't important because there'll be more along in a moment. I'm not sure that this is a good way of building trust in a project/product, however.
For GNOME-like project? It's the only way.

Really? Word gets round, and it's not just people ranting that puts the word out there. Look at KDE 4 or Windows Vista as some reasonable examples.

Very small percentage of GNOME users are programmers. That means that they can not fix things themselves and rely on project developers for that. Things you need to fix first are things which affect biggest number of people - but there are very poor correlation between number of complains and number of users.

This is what everyone hides behind. On the one hand, the complaints merely vocalise the frustrations of the silent majority; on the other, the silent majority are so content that they never speak up. When people are so motivated to write down their frustrations (see elsewhere in this discussion for a really good example), this is material that people in the "customer satisfaction" business would pay good money for: you have someone legitimately trying to offer feedback, even solutions, that no tick-box survey with bland questions and a 1-to-4 scale can ever attempt to match.

Sure, there are also people who just flame the developers in almost coherent all-caps exclamations, but I dislike the somewhat dishonest use of various rationalisations ("criticism is self-selecting and thus invalid", "users don't really know what they want") used to belittle and ultimately discard legitimate feedback. And, yes, Apple's designers have famously claimed that they lead their users to what they (the users, not the designers, supposedly) really want - I knew this would come up - but their designers don't get it as right as everyone likes to think, and other designers are probably not as skilled as the ones working for Apple, contrary to what they themselves might believe.

And Apple's designers also have someone to shout at them for getting it wrong. What they do doesn't happen in a complete vacuum either.

Sorry, but this is not so straightforward

Posted Nov 7, 2011 17:55 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

When people are so motivated to write down their frustrations (see elsewhere in this discussion for a really good example), this is material that people in the "customer satisfaction" business would pay good money for: you have someone legitimately trying to offer feedback, even solutions, that no tick-box survey with bland questions and a 1-to-4 scale can ever attempt to match.

Surveys with checkboxes are just a way to show that you do something. I've participated in the usability studies and the rule #1 is: never trust the user. Never. If ask him or her to do something (for example find the document and print it), you videotape his or her efforts and then you analyze these videos. If you'll ask why s/he spent so much time looking for the printer icon you'll hear that said icon is of unfamiliar shape or size or something equally nonsensical, but if you'll take a look on the video you'll see that in reality s/he tried to print using "Print Preview" panel - and this panel just does not have such icon at all! Obvious problem, but not even close to what you'll hear from user.

I'm not saying that GNOME developers did many studies (probably not: there are obvious problems in GNOME Shell), but the fact that they ignore loud complains is fine - these are not a good sources of UX ideas anyway.

P.S. I remember one stricking example: one [relatively large] company did a usability study related to Office switch. They used Office 2003 and the question was: should they go with Office 2007 (with it's all-new ribbon interface) or with OfficeOffice.org? First they did 5-minutes test (Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org were just shown and the task was just to print "hello, world" on printer) - and OpenOffice.org was clear winner: 80% liked it more then MS Office 2007. Then they did few more tests - and results were disastrous for OpenOffice.org. It was hated now and failure rate was much higher. Why? Because underlying technology means more then buttons. One example: when you need to insert page number and use appropriate item in menu of Office 2003 or on ribbon of Office 2007 the reaction is the same: you are given choice - do you need to put it on the top or on the bottom of page. When you do the same thing with OpenOffice.org you can page number in the middle of page. To do what any sane user will want (put number in header or footer) you must go and manually create header or footer, switch to it and then insert page number. Great idea from mathematical abstraction POV, but the end result - over 50% failure rate.

Sorry, but this is not so straightforward

Posted Nov 7, 2011 18:22 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Surveys with checkboxes are just a way to show that you do something. I've participated in the usability studies and the rule #1 is: never trust the user.

Saying things like this just gives people the wrong idea: "This guy on LWN said that you can't trust the user, so shut up, users!". In fact, you can and should trust the user when they tell you they can't do something, but you can't rely on them to accurately report what went wrong.

Again, when people give you qualitative feedback of a reasonable quality, it is frequently of far higher value than, "How easy did you find it to launch Firefox? (1 = very hard, 4 = very easy)" And even people's "wrong" descriptions of their experiences are enlightening to anyone willing to listen. Telling users that they "don't get the conceptual metaphor" or whatever conveniently avoids the issue of why they didn't "get" it.

Complainers are not your enemies

Posted Nov 7, 2011 18:02 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (1 responses)

Exactly. Focus groups and usability studies tell you what you want to know; complaints tell you what you don't want to know, and thus you will get from nowhere else. It takes a certain humility to accept this kind of criticism and it is not easy to do, but you can find examples: Google recognizing the Honeycomb closed-source debacle, or Microsoft accepting the Vista fiasco. They don't say: "complaints are not helping" (or not any more); they have swallowed their pride and tried to correct course.

The equivalent of the Gnome and KDE projects complaining about critics is a child covering their ears and shouting "La-la-la". Not a good impression on critics or on users. I have seen first hand how positively customers react when their criticisms are heard and redressed (as best as the complaints department could); they gave even better scores than those customers which had no complaints to begin with!

Complainers are not your enemies

Posted Nov 8, 2011 16:22 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

As someone from GNOME, I don't complain. Except when usage of certain words and personal insults.

This is attitude Apple is using - and they DO have users, strangely enough...

Posted Nov 16, 2011 22:02 UTC (Wed) by cas (guest, #52554) [Link]

Things you need to fix first are things which affect biggest number of people

like the existing userbase who didn't want radical changes to the way they interact with their computers? who just wanted bug fixes and incremental improvements?

more helping

Posted Nov 7, 2011 13:08 UTC (Mon) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

"it's actually worse than silently stopping to use the software."

This is true if, but only if, you where *already* aware of precisely which changes annoy users the most - and have *already* decided that you're not going to do anything to rectify the problems those users experience.

In that case, hearing about the problems is just noise. You seem to hint at that with "Well, it's hardly likely to appeal to everyone, and I made it like this for a reason."

If that's the response to any and all feedback, i.e. "the user is always wrong", then obviously hearing from users is unwanted and pointless. You know best anyway - "I made it like this for a reason" (and implied: "my reason is better/more-important than the reasons people dislike it)

Sometimes this attitude is legitimate. If I don't care about users, for example. (if I write a program to solve a problem for ME, I don't nessecarily care at all if I'm the only user, or if there's many)

more helping

Posted Nov 8, 2011 8:52 UTC (Tue) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses)

Bug reports have been filed and are being ignored. The level of discourse has dropped to flaming comments on LWN because users have no outlet left to them.

more helping

Posted Nov 8, 2011 21:37 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]

Maybe so, but at least put a link to the bug in a "flaming comment" when you post it?

Otherwise, developers are going to think, "why should I work on that project? The users are flaming [redacted] who can't even file proper bug reports."