Fab,
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Fabian A. Scherschel <fab(a)sixgun.org> wrote:
Oh, come on!
Asking the user what wallpaper they want on boot is obviously nonsense!
Should we also ask them what colour icons they want or where the panels
should be? How about the browser or the default email program? Where does it
stop?
The job of a distribution is too decide on sensible defaults so the user
doesn't have to. This is ridicolous!
It's not that ridiculous if you think about it. It might be different
to what you are used to from a Linux distro.
I'm thinking of lots of modern websites where the design and
functionality has been changed*. These are leading sites that haven't
got to where they are by alienating users. It is similar to changing
the way the desktop works. As a gentle introduction to the changes,
the user on first login is offered a tour of the new features which
integrates nicely with a chance to change or set the optional bits of
the interface. Actually I think that would work really well with Gnome
3 if only someone had the time, the overall vision and the
responsibility for making sure the users 'bought in' to the new
design...
-Cam
*
new.facebook.com and then Facebook's 'New profile'; the second
redesign of Orkut; YouTube's new layout all had interactive tours to
introduce users to the new features (and turn bits of them off if they
didn't like them)