Re: Re: Look and Feel

[MJ Ray]

Jason Clouse <jhclouse@charter.net> wrote:
> On 2005-02-16 23:22:02 -0500 MJ Ray <mjr@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> > Do we accept that UI is a minority expertise? If so, can we trust
> > a majority to make a good decision?
> We're not talking about UI.  We're talking about GNUstep's 
> out-of-the-box look.  Totally different things.

Look and user interface are not totally disconnected.

> > No-one did deliberate market research in there did they?
> I read every comment on this story when it was released and I've read 
> the comments on the previous stories.  The large number of people who 
> say things like "Yeah, but it looks terrible.  I'd never use something 
> that looked like that!" is evidence enough.

What proportion is "large number"? Are there any metrics on
the discussion which illustrate this, or do you expect everyone
to go read over 400 comments to see if they think it's true? As
I wrote, it looked at first glance like a larger number want
objective C++ and ACPI fixes.

> It doesn't matter if 
> there is a theme bundle for some.  They'll download the source, build 
> it, take a quick look, and go back to GNOME, KDE, or XFCE.  If it 
> doesn't look very slick, many will just pass on by.  And that would be 
> sad.

Huh? People who like things to "look very slick" using XFCE? Has it
changed a lot since the screenshots on www.xfce.org then?

> > Also, (fortunately) slashdotters are not the real world.
> No.  But Slashdotters are representative of the people who might 
> consider using GNUstep.

I really don't think that's true. It's a scary idea.

Anyway, I think the typical slashdotter is a former windowmaker
or afterstep user (mainly because of the easy wallpaper-based
"themes") who now uses a pixmapped theme for KDE, right down
to the widgets. Changing the default theme probably would only
help to attract them because of their unwillingness to read
instructions. Good web browsers and mail clients may be more
important to attract them.  Their former steppish window manager
love may even mean that we shouldn't change the look too much.

Sources:
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=513&aid=-1
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=920&aid=-1
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1230&aid=-1
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1218&aid=-1
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=189 (and a couple of "Next"s)
..and my experience working on themes.org

-- 
MJR/slef