From: Juan Navarro <oneorjuan_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:23:47 +0200

El 29/08/2011 15:52, Hayden Pearce escribió:
>
>
> On 29 August 2011 20:45, Kaspar Rothenfußer <addressforads_at_gmx.net
> <mailto:addressforads_at_gmx.net>> wrote:
>
> Am Montag, den 29.08.2011, 16:34 +1000 schrieb Jonathan Gordon:
>
> How can you be so such a stubborn dictator? As an observer, I see
> a 5-6
> comitters majority against you.
> To add a users perspective: I access the settings menu quite
> regularly,especially the playback settings. Config files are a pain in
> th ass, and (I think) only used in special scenarios where a user has
> 2-3 fixed groups of settings. Friends I have helped with installing
> rockbox have never heard of the files (and call me when they want
> settings changed). The manual is in general not read, as good as it is
> and this won't chabge. So anything that makes the settings more
> visible
> and accessible following user's intuition would be great. I had
> problems
> not finding t&d in settings (where it belongs) before, but it
> would not
> be bad to have it in a system settings subgroup with other "once
> and for
> all" settings. Also remember that the main reason to change
> settings is
> to change things influencing playback or how the device looks. This is
> not Gnome where you have to handle external devices, Wifi access and
> packet sources... so a "system" menu item seems one more useless click
> to me.
>
> Just my 2c,
> Cheers,
> Kaspar
>
>
> I find your suggestion that Jonathan is being a "stubborn dictator"
> here frankly quite offensive, if this were really the case he would
> not be opening up the discussion for people like yourself to comment on.
> You also make several highly speculative comments, in particular
> regarding config files and the manual.
> You yourself might not read the manual, and you might not like the
> idea of custom config files...but lets keep our observations limited
> to our own experiences and not try to guess the behaviour of the
> masses, shall we?
>
> It was actually I, that opened this can of worms regarding the menu
> layout, not Jonathan, but I congratulate him on the level of patience
> he has had during the ongoing discussions that surround these
> obviously contentious changes.
>
> A dictator would say "this is how it is, and nothing you can say or do
> will change this...it is happening", not open the floor to those
> willing to comment in case they might have a better suggestion than he.
>
> I have linked in this thread, a Google Doc that everyone with access
> to the link is free to edit. If you feel you can come up with a better
> proposal please feel free to do so. However, if you do edit the doc I
> ask only that you append your proposal to the bottom of the document
> as opposed to editing directly anyone else's proposal. It would also
> be helpful if you added as much comments explaining your proposal
> as possible so that we can all be made aware of why you think X is
> better than Y, or why Z is unacceptable to you.
>
>
> [Saint]

Let me support Kaspar in what he says about reading the manual and
intuitive user interfaces. Always in my humble opinion: as a general
rule, manuals aren't read, and that's not speculation, that's a matter
of reality. Whenever somebody gets a new gadget, it usually belongs to
some category of gadgets from which he has already owned some old device
before, and basic operations common in that category are expected to be
found and same or similar user interface is also expected to be found.
That's why manuals are usually not even needed, specially if the device
has a proper interface.

And let me insist on that last line: it's not strange at all, in fact it
is the normal case, that the manual isn't needed at all for learning and
discovering how a device works. The key is how intuitive and well
designed the user interface is. Whenever some operation cannot be
deducted out of pure intuition and logic, _then_ manual is needed. We
could do the opposite reading: whenever a manual is read, means a flaw,
error or opportunity to improve in the user interface design. Obviously
getting to know that the mp3 player has the option of using custom CFG
files which contain settings in a text fashion... well, it's not
something you could guess if someone just gave you the device on it's
own and you had to learn to use it on-the-go.
Received on 2011-08-29