Livna Usability Assessment (Was: Re: cursed nvidia fedora my lack of knowledgeness)

[Christopher A. Williams]

On Sun, 2005-11-13 at 20:41 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-11-13 at 19:29, Christopher A. Williams wrote:
> > ...And if he doesn't understand the use of the site, how do expect the
> > average non-technical person to?
> 
> There's nothing unique about the use of the site. You shouldn't
> be at livna unless you already know that the program you want
> to install isn't in the core or extras repositories.  When you
> know about those repositories, you'll know all you need to
> know about livna except the config info. 

...So, we shouldn't allow non-technical users the ability to do things
with Fedora like play Windows Media formats because they're not
technical enough to understand it. Nice...

> > > Everyone who would use it already has the tool.
> > 
> > Not necessarily true. Everyone will have Yum, but what about other tools
> > like Yum Extender?
> 
> Not necessary - and again not unique to livna. Just get the config
> done and type something like:
> yum install xine vlc mplayer xmms-mp3

...Which makes my point again. You show more interest in being technical
with the CLI and it's capabilities to do rather complex operations than
helping make the software useful for the average, non-technical user.

The user has to know that they need xine, vlc, mplayer and xmms-mp3 to
be able to handle the most basic multimedia formats available on other
platforms. If they know *exactly* what they need and understand yum,
then this is a relatively easy command. But first, they need to know
they need these packages. If you didn't know the package names, you
couldn't get this done even if you were a yum guru.

> 
> >  And even if everyone has Yum, do they know what it
> > does what to do with it before coming to this site? If they did,why is a
> > wiki being discussed as an addition?
> 
> They do need a place for feedback about unexpected problems and
> workarounds - the things someone maintaining the site can't predict.

Yes this is a need, among others.

> > My mother is a Fedora Core user as well. She uses Fedora because I
> > showed her how to do some things with it and she likes the speed,
> > stability and flexibility Fedora give even an average user. She couldn't
> > make heads or tails of the Livna site either. It was no help to her at
> > all - I had to step her through finding and setting up the repo using
> > the RPM. She waited patiently for a couple of days before I could get to
> > her to help.
> 
> Did she understand how to use the core and extras repositories?  Those
> should come first.  Learn about the place with thousands of programs
> before the one with dozens.

...So, again, my mother should learn all about the thousands of other
programs, with all of the CLI utilities before she earns the right to
watch things that come in Windows Media format or, heaven forbid, listen
to an MP3 file. Oh, and since Extras is already pre-configured with FC4,
we all must make sure we know that it is, understand it, and after lots
of practice and pain, we get to finally play those news videos from CNN.
The same ones we could always play out of the box with the Redmonian
software with none of the fuss.

And we wonder why Linux isn't accepted at a greater level. Hmmm....

You really don't see the fallacy with what you say.

The answer to your first question, by the way, is yes, she had a basic
understanding, thanks to me teaching her.

> > > There's nothing different about using the tool with this
> > > repository than the other ones they already use.
> > 
> > This may be the case, but the average non-technical user may not realize
> > it.
> 
> That's the problem you need to solve, not the situation of someone
> who stumbles across the livna web site without having or knowing
> how to use fedora.

...And again you miss the whole point. I know enough about Fedora to
understand it easily as well as you do. I can enter cryptic commands
with the best of them. Yet this site isn't useful even for me as an
information portal. And anyone who wants to do things with the Fedora
systems that are routine with other software will eventually stumble
across Livna. Many will be new users who don't understand. I thought the
point was to help them.

You also seem to assume the person who I asked to do the Assessment
doesn't know how to use Fedora. You're mistaken there as well. I just
said in my original post that he has a strong NBM attitude, which is
quite a different thing. There are a number of Fedora users in my
office.

> > It sounds like you're saying perhaps we should take the Website down
> > since reading the site for the average user doesn't accomplish much.
> > It's therefore a waste of time.
> 
> The config info has to live somewhere.  

Then make it blatantly easy for people coming to the site to use it.

> > Heck, if you really want to keep the link as Configuration, then place
> > something prominently on the first page that says something like, "To
> > get started using the Livna repository, click 'Configuration', run the
> > command you see there, and then start installing stuff."
> 
> Isn't it like that now?  That was my impression anyway - but I wasn't
> interested in the site news or FAQ and skipped those parts.

No it isn't from a usability point of view. It can be made that way
though, which is why I started this to begin with.

> 
> > The key is deliver the right information in a timely manner and in the
> > right context to enable the end user to accomplish the goal.
> 
> My preference would be to have the stock yum setup already include
> the livna repo, but I suppose that's not likely to happen.

It happened with Extras and it *could* happen with Livna as well. But if
that does happen, we better be prepared to make things as easy as
possible for people just starting with Fedora. Otherwise, they'll go
back to using what they were before and leave Fedora behind.


-- 
======================
"Only two things are infinite,
the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former."

-- Albert Einstein