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