unity-design team mailing list archive

[Scott Kitterman <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday, September 03, 2010 04:23:01 pm Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> Hello Scott,
> 
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 05:01, Scott Kitterman <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > "Frederik Nnaji" <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 19:58, Scott Kitterman <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > 
> > wrote:
> > >> On Wednesday, September 01, 2010 07:17:55 pm Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> > >> > On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 19:16, Scott Kitterman <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > >> 
> > >> wrote:
> > >> > > If you're using apt-get, then you aren't in the target audience
> > 
> > Ayatana
> > 
> > >> > > is designing for.
> > >> > 
> > >> > I think the CLI is definitely part of an ordinary Ubuntu experience
> > 
> > for
> > 
> > >> > about 50% of Ubuntu users.. imagine getting workarounds from forums
> > 
> > and
> > 
> > >> > wiki sites into place without guiding the novice through the CLI for
> > >> > a
> > >> 
> > >> few
> > >> 
> > >> > commands..
> > >> > 
> > >> > Apart from that, getting the CLI dialogs right is an essential step
> > >> > in
> > >> 
> > >> the
> > >> 
> > >> > evolution of interface metaphors. The GUI is born in the CLI, if you
> > 
> > ask
> > 
> > >> > me..
> > >> 
> > >> Right is a function of the audience.  I think that CLI package
> > 
> > management
> > 
> > >> users are more likely to be annoyed by excessively nanyish warnings
> > >> from their
> > >> package manager than helped by them.
> > >
> > >I agree, "right" depends on who's lookin.
> > >
> > >on another note..
> > >i'm feeling like there's still too much developer vs consumer here..
> > 
> > Traits
> > 
> > >of elitarism.
> > >The new concept is prosumer aka community-driven, everyone contributes,
> > >using is participating already. There is also little sense in
> > >classifying groups of users by the applications they use in this
> > >particular context: community is a classless system.
> > 
> > That's only true if you don't care about losing the people that got
> > Ubuntu to the edge of the chasm. I'm reasonably certain that's not the
> > case.
> 
> I meant no harm or disrespect to the great characters who shaped much of
> what we know as "Free" today..
> 
> My personal point of view is simply that software under the hood of
> "Ubuntu" will be unreasonable, if it splits the community into a system of
> classes.. I am open for other opinions: perhaps you expand on why
> community is not a classless system .. or did i get you wrong in all?

Not all users have the same level of experience.  That's unavoidable.

In general (not always, but in general) more experienced users will be more 
like to use more command line tools in their regular use of the system.  As a 
result, I think it's a safe assumption that the typical command line user 
knows more about the system than one would consider normal for GUI based 
tools.

More experienced users tend to find excessive warnings about things that are 
generally well understood to be off-putting.  Adding them as Ubuntu specific 
changes reinforces the notion that Ubuntu is only for beginners and not for 
people who know what they are doing.  We don't want that.

So feel free to put all the training wheels you think are needed in the GUI, 
but don't extend the same concepts to the command line.  

Scott K