WhatDoNonGeeksWant

Revision 18 as of 2006-06-20 09:09:06

Clear message

Summary

Most of the features we add are for geeks ! To truly transcend beyond the current OSs, we need to poll users and find out what they would use the OS. We do not have to talk to all the billion people ;o) but still need to touch the representative groups

Rationale

Make an OS that is turely part of global life

Use cases

To come from talking with users from various walks of life and interpolating their aspirations ...

Scope

Like my son says "Infinity and beyond ..."! Actually the scope is bounded, but would require working across different packages and possibly developing couple of protocols and definitely a few skins ...

Design

Implementation

Code

Data preservation and migration

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion

Users and developers have all sorts of interesting and intriguing reasons and stories to tell about why they chose to use F/OSS. We should encourage each of them to write a short essay on their reasons for doing so. There won't be any prize to win, just a chance to wax lyrical on what they enjoy about F/OSS and how it has worked for them. Put these in a shared place and take the best of them to use for marketing purposes. As a source of inspiration compare the short stories football fans write to explain how they came to support their favourite club.

  • Features we can implement now
  • Results from usability studies across the globe
  • What would you use it for - Campaign ?
  • Web site to enter new ways of using computer - with some periodic prize ?
  • Proactive queries in User group meetings ?
  • OLPC usage scenarios
  • Some forum for people who have never used computers ?

Discussion Notes (KS) (June 19,2006 14:00-15:00)

  • What does the term non-geeks mean ?
    • Users who use computers, not for their own sake, but as a tool to get things done.
    • Quality is very important. They should not have to wait for six months to get that feature fixed. Their stuff should just work
    • While the argument that safe and secure computing is easier on a non-windows platform could be valid, this is not a reason enough to switch
  • What fraction of the users do we want to appeal to first ? What is our market segmentation ?
    • Windows Users
      • Provide feature set to make their decision to switch easier
    • First time users
      • Great 1st time experience (like Apple which focuses on 1st time users and will sacrifice usability for the next 1,000 times for that great 1st time use)
    • Momentum users/Opinion Leaders
      • Use it for a month, experience the difference and tell a frient to use it (This should be our primary focus)
    • Make sure we do not create a bad experience for the casual user and they will not come back again
  • What are the ways of getting feedback and suggestions from them ?
    • Survey - user data, constant stream, fine grained geography, target groups,...
      • Verifiable, structured way to support the request for a feature
    • Other sources like top 5/10/50 from download.com (does not show why, for that we need to talk to users)
    • Find users and motivate them to talk to us
    • Questions from Andreas' survey
    • Feedback from teachers (especially ones teaching 1st time computer users)
    • Intuitiveness to children not same as intuitiveness for adults
    • Community College/Evening schools - where adults go for learning
    • Bookstore ? Library ?
    • User forums
      • Comb forums for the difficulties folks face and correct them
      • Start a general annoyances forum ?
      • Poll ubuntu forums regularly to get feedback, suggestions,...
    • Entry Point Analysis
      • Experience when you installed Ubuntu
      • Motivate all to watch friends and family install Ubuntu and report annoyances
    • One of the things we are not doing - success stories
      • Poll current users and get their story - why they are using, what are they using it for, ...
    • Get data from search (application) and search (help).
      • But this data is difficult to get.
      • May be get user agnostic aggregated data which will tell us what is the most sought after topic in help ? What application do users search for ? et al
  • What can we do about it ?
    • Key painpoints and create alternatives in configuration ?
    • Small things do matter - many times people get frustrated by them
      • Counter point - people do fall in love with small features that worl very well
    • Go to places where W is very bad (for example places whete cost is an issue. SO they will never use W and so no compatibility problems)
  • General Comments
    • One specific difficulty - want to open word format and save in windows format. Can this be default in openoffice ?
    • Challenge - barrier of binary driver
    • Experience of Ivan installing Linux at Hospital
    • Users would go to user forums or wiki than IRC or places where they have to logon
    • Forums are a good tool; people first start asking questions, get expertise and then they help others ...

  • Here's the thread about this specification : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=199744

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