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Weblog:   Refining for usability
Subject:   No problem
Date:   2004-04-28 10:47:35
From:   boud
Your dad won't have any problems with KControl because he won't use it. He won't need it. He won't miss it. He will, in all probability, have a problem with certain glaring inconsistencies, like having a different key for 'previous message' in KMail and KNode, or having his distro popup Mozilla or Firefox instead of Konqueror (with its different way of doing anything), or he will notice that not every KDE app has a recent files menu entry -- but he won't notice KControl.


Complaining about configurability has become something of a fad in the last year or so, with discussions breaking out everywhere, from Slashdot to this place -- but in the end, it's not important for new users. New users care about good defaults (which is the distro's job), about consistency from one app to another and about not being made to feel like an idiot by the software they use.
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  • No problem
    2004-04-28 15:06:11  kanasai [Reply | View]

    I totally agree with you here. Average users do not fiddle with settings. Give them sane defaults, and they are happy. Average users only configure stuffs like wallpaper, winamp skin, and msn avatar, so that the desktop has its own identity. Other than that, they just want consistency from one app to another, as well as consistency from one computer to another.

    There is no need to hide options from average users. For them, the options are already well hidden.
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