_____
From: [email protected]
[mailto:devl-bounces at freenetproject.org] On Behalf Of Ian Clarke
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 7:58 PM
To: Discussion of development issues
Subject: Re: [freenet-dev] Our current web interface and its usability
On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 4:05 AM, xor <xor at gmx.li> wrote:
We DO NOT need a new web interface. Our current web interface is easy to
use, works well, is sufficient, and it is also easy to write plugins which
use it - I've worked with it for WoT and Freetalk and it was fun.
I hope this is true, but I'm skeptical. I'd recomend getting some
non-techies to try Freenet, without guidance from you, and to point out
anything in the web interface that doesn't make sense. I'd like to think
that they won't find anything to point to, but I doubt it :-)
The persons I've showed it to sit at their PC very much but are not experts.
I'd call them "power users", they are familiar with eMule etc. and do not
like wasting much time on configuring complex stuff. They were impressed by
the clear layout of the web interface and thought it was a good
representation of a p2p program.
Anyway I've tried my best to point out anything which is difficult to use in
my bug reports.
We're all steeped in a pretty good understanding of Freenet, and the
terminology used, but newbies aren't. A term that makes perfect sense to
us, such as Matthew's use of the term "node" in the progress page, is likely
to confuse newbies.
"Node" should really be replaced with "Client" *everywhere* because client
is the common word.
I also think that some words should be replaced. I did that for a few things
in my last few commits. Further, for example I suggested to replace "Key"
with "Download link" on the downloads & uploads page. I think there is more
stuff I can help with if I take the time to read all strings in the english
language file. I can also help with the German translation as I am a native
German speaker.
But of course we won't need to rewrite any code for replacing the words so
lets just do that :)
I think to create a good UI, we need to mistrust our personal perceptions of
what makes sense, because, frankly, we aren't our target audience.
True. I claim to be able to imagine in some way what a newbie might behave
like ;) And I know some newbies.
I'd encourage everyone to find newbies whenever possible, and watch them
install and try to use Freenet, reporting any issues they run into to this
list, or as bugs Get them to give you a narrative of what they see ("not
sure what that button does" or "hmm, not sure what I'm supposed to do now"),
and report it. Anything you need to explain to them is a *bug*, because most
of our future users won't have you sitting there to explain it.
Always trying to do so.
I'd prefer to avoid a ground-up redesign of the UI too, but for anyone that
wants to work on the UI, please grab a friend or relative unfamiliar with
Freenet, and watch them trying to install or use it.
Okay good. As I've said, my basic point is that it would cost us too much
resources as the current interfaces are quite useful for developers and the
outcome of it is useful to users and can be made even better if we fix a few
glitches and add some scripting which hopefully our GSoC people will be able
to do =)
Ian.
--
Ian Clarke
CEO, Uprizer Labs
Email: ian at uprizer.com
Ph: +1 512 422 3588
Fax: +1 512 276 6674
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