← Back to team overview

unity-design team mailing list archive

Re: what does set up broadcast account mean?

 

On 03/25/2012 03:16 PM, Nekhelesh wrote:
On 03/25/2012 09:13 PM, Evan Huus wrote:
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


+1..The term "Social Networking" is more clearer than "Broadcast".

Nekhelesh


+1 to this. To many users the term "Broadcast" is a rather poor indication of what this is. The term Social Networking would certainly be an improvement.

Follow ups

References