unity-design team mailing list archive

[Evan Huus <eapache@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Alan Bell <alanbell@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  On 25/03/12 19:06, Omar B. wrote:
>
>  from an user study some time ago about ubuntu's showstoppers:
>
>
> http://design.canonical.com/2010/06/when-new-users-first-encounter-ubuntu-5-show-stoppers/
>
>  *3. Use of jargon*
> *
> *
> *During their exploration of Ubuntu, participants encountered words they
> didn’t know, or didn’t expect, or terms that they had no use for: examples
> included ‘Gwibber’,’broadcast’,’terminal’ and ‘server’. “You lose me with
> ‘terminal’ and ‘server’.” one person said.*
> *
> *
> *The use of such specialised language significantly influenced how users
> perceived the brand and the intended audience for Ubuntu. Some of the
> participants wondered whether Ubuntu was meant really for expert users
> rather than for them.*
>
>
>  So I told a friend that ubuntu came with *social network integration
> (facebook/twitter)* right in the panel.
>
>  She then later called me because she couldn't find the way to do it.
>
>  I then explained to her that she needed to go to "*set up broadcast
> account".*
> *
> *
> She told me she didnt want to "broadcast stuff", she just wanted to get
> status updates from her friends on facebook...
>
>  I then told her that what a broadcast account really meant is connect to
> her social network.
>
>  So should we really be using the trademarks of proprietary services to
> label features of the operating system? Yes you might want to Hoover the
> carpet, and Xerox some documents and but you should understand that using a
> vacuum cleaner or a photocopier are the more correct general terms.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark. Arguably we could say
> that "social networks" is a more understood term than "broadcast accounts",
> but I don't think using the trademarks would be a good idea. I guess most
> people actually don't want to broadcast what they are doing, what they want
> to do is lurk and see what other people are doing. There are a lot more
> readers than writers on social networks.
>

I don't think we should use brand-name terms for the label either
(especially since Gwibber supports so many different services), but I don't
think that's what Omar was suggesting. "Social Networking" or even just
"Social" would still work better for me than "Broadcast".

Evan