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
