Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-factory (904 mails)

["Benji Weber" <benji@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 08/04/2008, Per Jessen <per@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I'm beginning to think that these usability issues are really down to
>  the experience level of the user.
>
>  It sounds to me like the inexperienced user likes Ubuntu because it
>  presents him with less choice, less options, and (maybe) less
>  information.  And YaST does the opposite, which the experienced user
>  likes.
>
>  I can almost see the first question asked by YaST during instalaltion:
>
>  Tick the box:
>
>  [  ]  I'm a newbie, help me where you can.
>
>  [  ]  I'm an semi-experienced user, don't hide things from me.
>
>  [  ]  I know what I'm doing, just leave me alone.

This sort of thing doesn't really work. No-one is experienced in all
areas. An expert in configuring something may be completely ignorant
in setting up something else.

Instead it's sensible to keep things as possible everywhere, provide a
path of least resistance through the process, and allow progressive
disclosure of greater detail at each stage where required. That allows
someone who is an expert in partitioning to customise it manually, and
a new user to accept the defaults. How much the user knows about a
specific subject cannot really be judged from a generic "Are you a
newbie?" question.

--
Benjamin Weber
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