Developers vs Grandmas

[Clint Savage]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 9:15 AM, Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
<bochecha at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> And I will make quite the opposite argument.  If you are a grandma,
>> how are you to know that logging bugs will help your situation?  I
>> think this is an opportunity for us as ambassadors to make inroads
>> with our families and get them involved in the process.  Without
>> average users providing perspective, how do we plan to make an
>> operating system to accommodate their needs as well?
>
> "Mummy, when you have a problem with your computer, you go to this
> website, you select the component that is in fault, the version of the OS,
> the architecture, and then you specify your problem".
>
> Now, if my mother ever manages to fill a bug report ("what does arch mean
> ? How do I know which component is faulty ?"), it will look like:
> "J'ai cliqué sur 'machin', ça marche pas".


> Yes, my mother doesn't speak english. But that's no problem as the bug
> zappers are great and will translate the report for the devs !
>
> Here is what it means in english:
> "I clicked on 'stuff' and it doesn't work".
>
> Yeah, grandma input will definitely be useful :-/

Not in that form she won't, which was pretty much my point.  Grandma
needs a 'did you do this?, then this?, then this?' step-by-step
questionnaire asking her for her input (or something like that).  We
must make it simple, or be the middleman.

> The problem here is that we want feedback from the most basic end-users
> with the least knowledge possible, but we definitely don't have the tools
> required for that (and I doubt it is even possible to create such tools
> that would not require massive human interaction with the end-user).

One idea that came out of FUDCon F10 was FedoraFamily[1].    One idea
was we could have a support channel.  From the user's side a support
icon could be placed on the top task bar (in GNOME anyway) which would
open a web page with FAQs and a support decision tree, but if they
were truly stuck, they could click 'chat with fedora support' and be
brought in touch with someone. This support channel would provide chat
support to something like #fedora with an alert to the ops that a
request for support was in #fedorasupport-somerandomnumber (or
something).  Someone manning #fedora could essentially go into this
private room and help the user.

There are several tricky parts with this;

1 The implication that Fedora support would possibly help people not
on current supported versions of Fedora, and what the process would be
to help get them to these newer versions
2 The support queue is already lengthy in #fedora
3 When questions arise that are outside of the support Fedora
provides, how to proceed
4 VOIP would be a good idea when connectivity is not working...
5 This doesn't necessarily solve the problem of logging bugs from
grandma, but puts them in touch with a Fedoran who can help gather the
correct info and log a bug on their behalf or something.

> Not an easy problem to solve...

Nope it sure isn't, but I like the FedoraFamily idea and was hoping
for more participation.  Maybe now is a good time to restart this
idea?

Cheers,

Clint

1- https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraFamily