Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 23:39 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784)
In reply to: Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities by Del-
Parent article: Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Indeed, so users will need to have the brains necessary to populate their desktop with widgets.

Well, I thought that there wasn't another choice in the matter (and maybe there wasn't in earlier versions of KDE 4), but I guess you can choose the traditional desktop background and ignore widgets entirely, although this may need some undoing of the defaults in a from-scratch installation.

And you might want to tone down your assessment of users "having the brains necessary", partly because it sounds offensive, partly because the ability to operate someone's often-contrived interaction mechanisms doesn't necessarily correspond to "having brains", and mostly because the game of "hit the pixel" and "find the invisible controls" increasingly seen in graphical environments are an affront to usability and to anyone who doesn't have tip-top motor skills and optimised equipment to make the experience a pleasurable one.

Your logic doesn't make sense. There was no way in hell KDE3 would make it out to average Joe.

Huh? I met people who rolled out KDE 1 to average Joes, albeit in a workplace setting. Meanwhile, people demand the reinstatement of the Start button in Windows 8 and reminisce about the "good old days" of Windows 95. If the usability experts spoke to real people in their own environments, they'd realise pretty quickly that people like what they already know, and KDE 3 was quite a lot like what they already knew.

Even KDE4 is probably too advanced to make it out to a majority of users.

And here we have to ask how you square that statement with the stuff you wrote above? Should we bury KDE 4 for a more sophisticated civilisation to enjoy given that our current one apparently isn't up to it?

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Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 7:17 UTC (Fri) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link]

> And you might want to tone down your assessment of users "having the brains necessary",

Sorry about that, never meant to offend anybody. I simply wanted to state my observation that users of KDE need to know how to populate their desktop (including taskbar). Simply because it is just a question of time before they mess it up. Hence you need to know what the basic widgets are and how to put them on the panel.

It is not that different from Android, also on Android people basically need to understand how to populate their screen with widgets to obtain a good user experience.

The reason I say that users need the brains (or equivalently training) is simply because I don't see how it could be implemented much more user friendly. Moreover, I really love widgets whether it is on my desktop or my phone (not that I use that many of them, but those I use I really enjoy). I think KDE has struck a good balance between catering to the likes of me and still keeping discoverability and user friendliness at a good level. There is no inconsistency in what I am saying, simply interpret it by the fact that I like KDE as it is. I am not a believer in one-size-fits-all. Things can be improved of course, but this discussion hasn't even begun looking at how.