More Hand Waving
Oy vey, this was not a personal stab at you, Aaron. You just happened to the developer the emailer mentioned. Next time I’ll be careful and anonymize.
Some general points:
- This is not my comment, these are comments I heard from the user community.
- Distros are making it easier for regular users to get development previews
- More than just developers and early adopters are reading Planet, but they might not understand how deep in the development process they are following
- We have regular users with access to development software who are getting frustrated with KDE because they can’t do what they see on TV
- This has nothing to do with usability; it is before usability is an issue so don’t put words in my mouth
It was a simple research question: “what effect [does] reading about and seeing developer screenshots has on our user base; especially after they try the latest beta release and realize they can’t do what they see”. This is more of a community issue than a technical issue. You guys are already working on a lot of this missing content, it just hasn’t been committed or released. The problem is, these regular users don’t know that, so they get frustrated and confused. Not because of bug crashes — they are aware and accept bug crashes as part of the “under development” experience. It is because content such as UI configuration options, plasmoids, etc. are no where to be found when they have seen them in screenshots/casts and talked about in blogs.
I won’t repeat the concerns I have on the effect of uninitiated users trying beta software and following development blogs might have overall. These are not users who have an already established a brand loyalty to KDE, but users who are new to Linux and KDE. We did a good job of reeling them in, but now we need to be careful about inadvertently driving them away with content for a different audience because they might be overzealous about previewing unreleased software.
A lot of new-to-Linux users don’t realize how volatile “under development” software can be. They think you have to download and compile from SVN to get really unfinished and unreleased software. There is a naive trust that if it is released and nicely packaged from their distro, it must be OK. This is probably because they come from a world where no sane company would risk their brand by releasing buggy software to the public. They have no deep-rooted loyalty to KDE yet, they just want a Linux system that works. We don’t want to lose these users because they have a bad experience trying a development Live CD or packages published by their distro.
(Keep in mind, I don’t think the fact that distros are packaging this software is a bad thing. It makes development software available to a lot of people who can help with testing and debugging. The problem is that the users who are testing and debugging are a different class of users than these “regular” users I talk about here.)
I didn’t realize opening up a topic for discussion in the community would get me labelled as a hand waver. Heavens forbid I try to be a team player and solve a problem with the team. But some good suggestions have come out of the sane discussions I’ve had about this issue.
Some people have mentioned that simply annotating screenshots and screencasts with SVN versions or dates could help these regular users understand they can’t do this yet with their packaged preview. Perhaps also try to be more clear about UI options versus what can only be done in configuration files and what isn’t even available yet. This would help users distinguish what should be in the environment versus what is under development and preempt a lot of their questions and concerns. If users had a better idea of what probably isn’t working, then they wont feel obligated to get upset about it.
seele :: Jun.24.2008 :: General, KDE/Kubuntu :: 21 Comments »
I don’t really see the point here.
We are talking about developer blogs. If people think they want to avoid “official” channels (kde.org, dot.kde.org) to get more recent informaton it’s their responsibility to use that information a correct way.
Only because blogs are easier to read than NGs/MLs does not mean that they are for “everyone”.
Maybe you could add a spoiler on planetkde … but imo that could get ridiculous very fast.
And as Aaron has pointed out that user’s comment is as usefull as “It does not work.”, so the user completly missed his responsibility.
I think Aaron just needs to moderate his tone a little bit. He hasn’t learned from his notorious “no icons on the desktop” post, despite his attempts to repair the fallout with the follow-up posts.
I’ve been using Linux for only 18 months, and currently use Ubuntu with GNOME (though I’ve previously had KDE 3.5 and Xfce on the same machine). However, I’ve tried literally dozens of Live CDs including all the KDE 4 previews I can find. (One of the UK Linux magazine had a KDE preview last summer and it was hilarious, barely fit to be on a coverdisk.) I’ve been disappointed with all of the OpenSUSE Stephan Pinner images and others - until, magically, a Fedora 4.0.82 disk finds everything coming together with looks, features and stability.
Probably the big problem for now is the name (a codename might have been better than “KDE 4″) and that wretched “woefully out of date” Plasma page, which should disappear from the web.
Six month ago, it was clearly announced that KDE4.0 is NOT a full replacement of KDE3.5, it miss of a lot of features which are under development.
A lot of people didn’t understood it, and now people think that KDE4.0 is a failure. The failure is not KDE4, but that users doesn’t like to read, hear and understand. This is not only a KDE problem, it is a common way to think (or better, un-think).
A lot of people before do things, and after read the instructions (maybe). If the toy doesn’t work the fault is of the toy, not of the user which doesn’t know how it works (or even he doesn’t know what the toy is).
Regards.
Screenshots are the best way to spark interest, even though what is shown might not be the final version.
I think the modified KDE 4.0.4 being distributed with OpenSUSE 11 really is ready for primetime. Distros like OpenSUSE are doing their job and providing the polished experience users expect.
@FiNeX: It doesn’t look very clear to me: http://kde.org/announcements/4.0/
@Finex: you are probably right about people behavior, but it’s much more difficult to change people than to adapt to what they expect in terms of communication.
I personally feel a bit like Celeste. The feedback I receive when I demonstrate KDE4 to friends and coworkers is that while they do appreciate the new technologies and innovations KDE4 brings, they also feel like it is not as polished as 3.5. In this sense, switching to KDE4 will be perceived as a step back for them.
After 4.0 was out, we (tried to) spread the word that 4.0 was aimed at enthusiast users and 4.1 would be the real 3.5 replacement. I am personally not sure it will be.
And before anyone yell at me for complaining without acting… well, I tried to get hired by a KDE friendly company but failed… I still do my best to contribute in my free time. Anyway, when one notice a problem and do not have a solution to it, should one stay quiet? I don’t think so. Talking about the problem is a good way to get others to think about it too and eventually find a solution.
“what effect [does] reading about and seeing developer screenshots has on our user base;”
I think “developer screenshots” is the key term here. As I see it, a lot of these issues stems from our internal developer blogs actually becoming _very_ public. Often if someone posts a cool screenshot on the planet, it is all over digg, reddit and whatnot in a matter of hours.
Developer screenshot are just that, screenshots that a developer makes of what they have been working on lately that might, or might not, have made it into trunk yet. So whose responsibility is it that these are not misinterpreted as something that is ready for everyones consumption?
If users actively browse the planet to get a peek at what is happening in development, then it is, in my opinion, their own responsibility to know that this is a collection of developer blogs, and that he should not expect all things he sees to be readily available just yet. If someone posts a blog on one of the big new sites, then it is that person who really should explain what it is that they are linking to ( I think this is actually where it often fails ). I do not, however, think that it is our responsibility to censor our developer blogs so they are “safe” for public consumption as that would greatly diminish their value. I also think that being open and letting people freely read these blogs is valuable ( as for once, I think it helps attract new contributors )
That was a long rant… I think my main point is ( something along the lines of ) that the KDE community is doing a great job of being open around what goes in in development, and many users are simply not used to this kind of openness , which causes noise.
I wasn’t suggesting censorship at all, just a little more effort towards documentation so these tourist users have more information about what they are getting in to. Keep in mind that Akregator ships with KDE Planet feeds by default. Planet is a mixture of both development and community, so it’s not fair to assume users will know what content is for them and what isn’t — especially when it’s there by default.
So, now it’s story time. Once upon a time on a national cancer website, there was some interesting content written for two audiences, one version written for Patients and one version written for Physicians. The content was the same in topic, but the Patient’s version was written in a more simple way than the Physician’s which had more medical details. However, Patients consistently went to the Physician’s version of the website to see what they were missing. Now there was a risk that Patients would read information clearly for Physician consumption and possibly misunderstand or misinterpret it. This was pretty serious, because the Physician’s information often talked about mortality data which could be distressing to Patients if they misunderstood or misinterpreted the information. Telling Patients not to go to the Physician’s version was not an option, because it was an open website and they would do it anyway. Instead, the material was written in a way so that Patients understood the information wasn’t for them. Some Patients were still going to go to the Physician’s version of the website, but they were informed enough to know if they had any doubts or questions to talk it over with their Physician.
(Interestingly, Physicians consistently went to the Patient’s version of the content because they felt it was more simple and easier to read).
Moral of the story? You can’t stop users from reading development blogs, digging cool screenshots, or posting on Slashdot. The best you can do is clearly state who the content is for so you limit the number of users who don’t know any better and disclaim the ones who will try it anyway. It’s just a suggestion. If you don’t care to do this, then you can’t complain when you get noise.
@Ian: I’ve been talking about development previews (particularly the 4.1 beta) not official releases.
What troubles me more is that I feel that any post that is even remotely critical of anything related to Plasma gets rebuffed instantly, with a public slap on the wrist of the writer.
I think we can do better, as this is hurting the community. We are shooting the messengers, while it would be easier to simply make the situation clearer, with diplomacy and tact. Case in point: the KDE4 desktop available to average users today is indeed different from trunk, it is a simple fact that does not imply guilt or wrongdoing. Can we communitate this better to users? Maybe, maybe not. Some users will miss the fact that it is trunk anyway, even if you put this in capital letters in every paragraph. Here you go. Rest in peace, no harm done.
Now if we start picking at each other for every blog post that can be read as even remotely critical of one’s work we will lose the thing that we value most: freedom of expression. We are all in the same boat, chill out and let people express what they are seeing and hearing from friends and users. Maybe there is something to be learned.
Heya,
As a tester of things new — and not a newcomer impressed by ‘teh shinx0rs’ — I’ve got to thank Celeste for bringing up a meaningful point: is it ready? / is Kubuntu preparing their users?
And to Aaron, whose comments about bugs.kde.org identified that the mailing lists are a better way to have people help you identify what’s wrong.
BTW, for my everyday needs, Kubuntu’s 4.0 packages were only lacking a way to autostart ACPI/laptop CPU throttling.
Thanks all,
k3n.
I don’t really think that stating clearly that the material published on developer blogs will be the future developement of kde would change anything. This is clearly understandable. There is quite a great number of complainers that do it for the pleasure of doing it I suppose. And this is more clear to me everyday I read comments on developers’ blogs. I’m not saying that nothing could be done to improve the situation, I’m saying that not anyone who shows up complaining for something has a point!
Users must be heard but they don’t have the Ultimate Truth. Especially if the title of Ultimate Truth holder is obtained by posting a lot of rants and complaints on developer blogs.
Keep doing what you’re doing. I was a huge fan of KDE 3.x but when I tried KDE 4.0 on Kubuntu it was an utter disaster. Nothing really worked the way it had appeared in screenshots and, in my opinion, the default settings are really pretty ugly. Thank heavens there’s someone in the KDE community who’s asking smart, logical questions. One of the biggest problems with this community (and many other internet communities) is that some supporters like to keep their blinders on and hate it when people raise productive criticism. Ignore those people.
What version is KDE Beta 2 going to be. Is it 4.0.83?
While I do understand your point about developers having to communicate better to the readers who the information is for and what it describes, I don’t think it’s really fair to put so much resposibility on the developers.
While you say that you’re not suggesting censorship or anything (and I agree that’s not what you’re suggesting), it’s still in my opinion related to censorship in that the developers would always have to watch their words and be careful to always explain that this is work in progress/not commited/in SVN rev X/et.c.
This puts a lot of extra work on already over-worked developers that maybe just want to use their personal blogs as a place to vent something they’re (and should be) particulary proud of. I think this is exactly what the Planet is for.
The Planet is the aggregator of all these blogs, so I think some responsibility falls on the Planet for making sure that its readers knows that what they’re seing are the personal blogs of the developers and that as such they will show features that might not be released, or even commited. I think that’s where this problem should be fixed, not by burdening the developers with some kind of “blogging guidelines”.
But I do share your concern and I think it’s good that you brought this up.
And by the way, if Akregator loads Planet KDE by default I think that’s a bad idea.
*phew*. Long comment ;)
@Elvis Stansvik I mostly agree with you.
As Aaron’s blog on “no icons on the desktop” and especially the comments there showed most people aren’t even reading the text or not mindful enough.
These are the same people that ask questions and ignore the answers. (like ignoring that a link to a wiki has been posted –> no point in explaining it yourself again if it is explained somewhere else a better way.
Personally I thinke one should (partially) ignore this type of people, otherwise it’s frustrating.
@Mobott Where has this “productive criticism” met with hate?
@ Mauricio Piacentini Do you think Aaron’s post was a public slap on the wrist of the writer? Maybe the wording was not ideal, but imo the most important part of his response was this:
“This leaves someone like myself staring at the entry and feeling absolutely, entirely helpless. There’s a stated general problem but with absolutely no real world examples to discuss, no actual problems to address … just a vague waving of arms in the air.”
As an outsider looking into KDE & KDE development, I’m not quite sure what’s going on here. We have “Are We There Yet?” which while ostensibly is about the canyon between an active developer’s desktop and what’s provided by default / Kubuntu, also contains a poorly formed bug report. Nowhere in aseigo’s reply do I see anything suggesting that he feels personally attacked. Sure he says he feels bad, but the cause doesn’t appear to be public humilation so much as helplessness. KDE 4.0 has been written off as ‘a nice place to visit, but don’t make it a home’ affair.
To make a general case that there is a canyon, I think specifics help. If there’s an indictment made against the stable release process and marketing, documenting some of the problems in detail will aid in reigning the worst of it.
Hopefully some good bug reports will come out of the woodwork with this thread, Aaron will get some concrete actions to undertake, and if we’re very lucky, someone will point out the difference between marketing and advertising.
It used to be in the olden days (linux kernel 0.9.3), a prevalent response to ‘users’ (of various types) was RTFM or much harsher.
Now we hear, “don’t criticize the developers it will discourage them”, “what have YOU done to contribute?”, even most recently, “you are not a major KDE developer why are you posting on the planet”
I keep thinking of the “leave britney alone” guy and have this parody of “leave aaron alone” or “leave the developers alone” running through my head (parody, NOT a directed personal assault).
Point? yes. KDE4 communication IS and WAS somewhat slightly mismanaged to a slight degree (see? plenty of soothing words, don’t any developer be insulted)
ah good times. thanks for a fine soap opera everyone,
“Like the grains of sand through the hour glass, this is ‘As KDE Compiles’”
Please. No rules for the planet. It’s perfect the way it is. Add a warning that it’s a developer’s planet if you want to.
Oh thanks, you gave us the best laugh of the week!!
We had tears from laughing so hard:
>There is a naive trust that if it is released and nicely packaged from their >distro, it must be OK. This is probably because they come from a world >where no sane company would risk their brand by releasing buggy >software to the public.
We just couldnt figure out which company you were describing?
Apple or Micro-soft.
Must be very few sane companies in your world.
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