Ian Clarke skrev: > Its that time again. Grab your girlfriends, boyfriends, flatmates, > friends etc, sit them down in front of a computer, and ask them to > install and use Freenet. Take careful note of anywhere they get stuck > and either report it here, or report a bug. DON'T HELP THEM! Any > time they need to ask you a question, its a usability bug. Ask them > to provide a running commentary on what they are seeing as they use > Freenet, make a note of anything that confuses or misleads them. > > Freenet has long been derided for its poor usability, but if you can > spend 10 minutes of your's and a friend's time, you can really help us > ensure that newbies have a good experience when they try Freenet.
Had a friend do a quick test. Quick lineup of relevant comments/questions/critique (my comments in parentheses): a) On the front page of the website: A "What is Freenet?" teaser linking to the "What is Freenet?" page would be cool. Confusedly started to read the news item instead. (She should have spotted the "News" headline, but I agree on the teaser) b) FUD alert on the "What is Freenet?" page: "Freenet does not let the user control what is stored in the data store. [...] Files in the data store are encrypted to reduce the likelihood of prosecution by persons wishing to censor Freenet content." (Agreed. We are scaring some people away before they even reach the download page. I don't think we should hide the facts, but rather give a reasoned explanation for the ways Freenet do things.) c) On the "Philosophy" page: More focus on what Freenet actually *can do* for citizens living under censorship and the like. Too much space spent on excusing for warez/other-stuff-people-don't-like. The "And what of copyright?" paragraph seems like a bad excuse for providing file sharing software. What about child porn/bomb recipes/etc.? (I agree on some of the points. While much of the info is indeed true, it might not be ideal to feed to first-time users up front.) d) FUD alert on the "Download" page: "Anti-virus software: Severe problems have been reported with Kaspersky, and other firewalls and antivirus software may also break Freenet's installation. Having said that, we do NOT recommend that you turn off your antivirus software on a Windows system; if installation doesn't work, please contact us and we will try to find out what is wrong." (TBH we haven't had "severe problems", and we don't know for sure if Kaspersky was the fault (although it looks like it was). And we are only talking about a single incident here - not "and other firewalls and antivirus software may also".) e) On the "Download page": No idea what a "node reference" is. (Could be rephrased or explained better) f) The "Must use a separate browser" page in fproxy is missing a "do" between "you" and "not". Very annoying to be asked to install a second browser. In this case, a third (using FF with IE as backup. And user is asked not to use IE). More FUD about history leaks. No idea what a "browser profile" is. (I have to agree. Quite a bit of usability fail. Put it as an fproxy info message instead. Hopefully we will have incognito support in FF soon enough.) g) Confusion about the "automatic IP detection". Why does Freenet needs my address when I'm supposed to be anonymous? What is JSTUN? What should I do on this page? (Agreed.) h) FUD on the main fproxy page after finally getting through the wizard: Big read warning about connecting to the network. (Agreed. Since this is to be expected, we shouldn't display a big, fat, red warning box. This makes users go FUD and think they did something wrong or something is broken. Make it a big, fat infobox instad. - Zero3 _______________________________________________ Devl mailing list Devl@freenetproject.org http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
