website mockups, what is fedora?

[Ben Boeckel]

On Saturday 22 August 2009 16:36:27 you wrote:
> 2009/8/22 Máirín Duffy <mairin at linuxgrrl.com>:
> > On Sat, 2009-08-22 at 02:01 -0400, Ben Boeckel wrote:
> >> *sigh* Using KMail now with mail delivery on and now I forget to check the receiver.
> >>
> > okay ill resend my reply
> >
> > Thanks for giving it a try. Here are the problems I see with the mockup:
> 
> 
> Ok I think I see where the 'fundamental breakdown' is coming in on the
> mockups. The KDE 'spirit' has always seemed to be about letting people
> know everything possible, and letting a person make their own
> decisions. In fact if one thing that gets more flame wars is anyone
> 'dumbing' down an interface by hiding choice. It goes with the
> assumption that man is innately curious and will want to play with and
> know he can play with anything. This shows up in the mockups with
> people giving tons of choices and letting innate curiosity fill in
> questions.
> 
> The other view is that people have shutdown their natural curiousity
> with the 'caution of adulthood'. They become confused and distracted
> and are psychologically unable to make 'good' decisions on things they
> know little about. So by limiting down choice you are able to get more
> acceptance from people so that they feel comfortable using the
> 'unknown' item.
> 
> The issue I think between the two is what population is larger of the
> two. From the studies I have seen, it seems that the second population
> (easily confused/intimidated/scared/cautious/whatever you wish to put
> here) is the larger part of the population. I am not talking about
> complete new people here. People who have used computers all their
> lives will still show up as just wanting the cautious 1 click method
> because they have too many other concerns on their minds. [I have long
> rants from former co-workers who find the Gnome desktop too
> complicated which after questioning them find out that it didn't allow
> them to get their job done in 1-2 clicks...]
> 
> The design challenge is that these people are not the only population
> around. People who are 'adventurous', wanting to feel more in control
> by seeing all the choices possible; the ones who throw out firefox
> after they find that most of the things they could have played with
> are hidden behind about:configs; they get turned off by being what
> they see as being herded. So the issue is getting them off of the easy
> pages as quickly as possible to the 'Expert' pages. I would say that
> for some of them what you want is not just send them to the
> Spins/Technology Preview pages but send them to the Spin Maker as
> quickly as possible.
> 
> The challenge for the adventurous 'all-choice' population is to
> realize that they aren't the lion share of people.
> 

Good point. Kevin said on IRC earlier today that we may be looking at it from different viewpoints as well. The current mockups assume new-to-Linux while in the KDE SIG we are looking from a new-to-Fedora-but-familiar-with-Linux viewpoint. Maybe this is a part of the root of the problem behind how we see these mockups?

--Ben
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