Abandon "Default Desktop"

[Adam Williamson]

On Thu, 2009-04-30 at 16:37 +0200, Kevin Kofler wrote:

> Why? If they don't care, they can just click "Next" on the pre-checked GNOME
> radiobutton (and I guess that if they really don't know what to pick or
> don't want to make a choice, they probably fit straight into GNOME's target
> userbase, so I don't object to making GNOME the preselected button). I
> really don't see how a "select your desktop environment" screen in the DVD
> would be a problem.

I already explained that, we're circling *again*. The problem is that
when you ask someone to make a choice without understanding the options,
it tends to frustrate them. This is a well-observed phenomenon in all
circles, certainly including computer user interface design.

(This happened to me just yesterday, filling in a Red Hat expense
report. The process includes several pages of choices, few of which I
really understood. It turned out sticking with most of the defaults was
fine, but I was nevertheless frustrated and unsure what I should do, and
when something *did* go wrong - which turned out to just be a server
error - I was worried it was because I had done the 'wrong thing'
earlier in the process.)

And again as I said before, whether we consider this a problem or not
depends on whether we care much about people who wouldn't know the
options they were being asked to choose between. And that's not a
question we currently have a clear answer to, I don't think.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net