On 06/03/2011 03:21 AM, Remco wrote:
So, for as long as I can remember, people have been asking for a welcome screen in Ubuntu which is presented when a new user first logs in. Today, I started Help and was amazed by how straightforward this looks. This is what needs to be started on first boot!
First boot and first login of a "new" user are meaningless.What if Eve installs a system for Adam to use? What if George creates another account to test something? What if Brunhilde installs her 3rd iteration of Ubuntu?
What if Vladimir really does login for the first time on his first Ubuntu system, but will feel belittled by anything that looks like hand-holding and gets in the way of exploring everything himself immediately?
Part of making a system feel consistent, reliable and predictable is avoiding special cases. A different behavior triggered once is like magic ...
While one could say that it should be very obvious and straightforward to access help, that could come at a cost of something else that might be used more often. None of the people I observed using computers ever brought up help, despite that a number of them could have benefited from it. My experience there matches observations and self-reports from others.
-- Thorsten Wilms thorwil's design for free software: http://thorwil.wordpress.com/