Redesign of downloads

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 10:17:03AM -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> On 07/31/2009 08:49 AM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 10:42:42AM -0500, Adam Miller wrote:
> >> On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Paul W. Frields<stickster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> <snip>
> >>> FOR:
> >>>
> >>> * People who are somewhat computer savvy, but may be new to Fedora
> >>>  and/or Linux and FOSS in general
> >>>
> >>> * People who are not sure what they need to do in order to try Fedora
> >>>
> >>> * People who may not understand how to create and use Live media
> >>>
> >>> * People who don't know where to find anything other than the default
> >>>  offering (i.e., is there something else available?)
> >>>
> >>> NOT FOR:
> >>>
> >>> * People who are currently and comfortably using Fedora
> >>>
> >>> * People who have pre-specified needs for the Fedora they download
> >>>
> >>> * People who know where to find non-default offerings, and want to
> >>>  pick from an a la carte-style or other expanded sort of list
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> +1
> >>
> >> I think this is a great proposal/brainstorm/whatever and that it's a
> >> big misconception that there is a need to cater to the more advanced
> >> users as they are going to find their way around even if explanations
> >> of things are more verbose or the site has been simplified, and I'd
> >> honestly be a bit surprised if anyone from the "advanced user" crowd
> >> would complain. (Though I'm sure someone will for some reason, but not
> >> everyone can be made happy so life goes on.)
> > 
> What is the definition of an advanced user?  I see lots of complaints
> from people who are advanced users and also contributors.  If they
> aren't contributors, I doubt that they'd take the time to complain where
> we'd see it.
> 
> One thing that I think the initial portion of the brainstorm touches on
> but the checklist of intended audience does not is how get-fedora can be
> a vehicle for moving people up the pyramid.
> 
> Right now it's static in that it aims to give new users the bits and
> that's it.  One complaint I've heard ("How can we get more people to
> contribute to the KDE/LXDE spins if they think Fedora treats them as a
> second class citizen to the Desktop spin?") has a legitimate basis in
> this concept.
> 
> We need to strive to make people who come to get-fedora to download a
> release feel that they are becoming part of the Fedora Community.  And
> by doing so they have the option to participate in the development of
> the next Fedora -- through code, packaging, art, documentation,
> marketing, teaching, or any of the other areas that we can receive help.

The simple download page is not the place to accomplish this.  Once
people download and run, they're in the distribution and are no longer
looking at that page.  The right place to get users contributing is to
lead them once they're running the distro.  That might be as simple as
a better start.fedoraproject.org, but that's probably a separate
discussion from this one, which is about providing a clear download
path.

The way to achieve more depth of participation from people picking up
various spins is to do a great job of explaining to them why that spin
matters.  That's why part of our overall goal is to have truly
meaningful spins pages where the spin communities can provide content
they want users to see, such as more details on why their spin is
awesome, and how to get involved.

> Using this as the foundation of what we're trying to achieve, the idea
> of a default spin makes a different kind of sense.  It isn't the spin
> for newbies.  It's the spin that we think we can entice the most people
> to contribute to one of the aspects of Fedora where we need help.  It
> needs to solve the needs of contributors to documentation, art,
> websites, etc as well as solving the needs of the person themselves.

I'm not sure I understand this.  A spin concentrating on Design tools
isn't going to look the same as something that effectively introduces
people to Fedora and free software.

> Similarly, the other spins aren't for the advanced users, they're the
> spins optimized to bring people into different parts of our community.
> Something like http://fedoraproject.org/en/join-fedora but with the
> focus of getting media first, and contributing to Fedora second.

Yes, I agree that spins aren't just for advanced users.  A Design spin
-- I'm just taking this as an example -- could easily appeal to the
"Just give me something that works out of the box so I can help with
Design tasks" user.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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