Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday 04 June 2012, Björn Balazs wrote: Aaron, all, thanks for your mail. It is good to adress these kinds of worries directly - and before the survey gets started. I actually get confronted with them often in my work. I personally think we do not need to worry. In most projects I worked with, people tend to agree with me at latest at the end of the project ;) Let me explain a bit - I hope you put the worries aside as well: We are not asking people how to build the bridge in terms of e.g. static calculations. These have to be done by an engineer. No discussion about this. What I try to do with this survey, is to ask users / the community to report about their life - or to stay in the picture: let them imagine where the bridge could be built and how the existence of the bridge would change their life. answers could tend to be more how they want their life or how they want to be seen as rather that the reality, it may be not completely useless tough people as possible into the development of (Free) Software Products. This will lead to better products, more (loyal) users, more advertising and more volunteers that participate, e.g. in bug triaging or translation. People will identify with a product they feel they have influenced - they will get a feeling of self efficacy. Of course this will not be the result of a one-time survey, but gathering experiences with this kind of approach might bring us into the situation of a cultural change in KDE, that is less developer-centric and more focussed on the users. completely agree that a cultural change like that is somewhat needed, and this survey is not useless in that regard, even tough probably of a somewhat limited help, we have to take that data as something informative, but something that has to be interpreted beyond what it seems to say (ie beyond what users think they need) we should always remember that user led is never exactly a good approach http://uxmag.com/articles/user-led-does-not-equal-user-centered Cheers, Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
Marco, all, Am Dienstag, 5. Juni 2012, 10:01:44 schrieb Marco Martin: On Monday 04 June 2012, Björn Balazs wrote: Aaron, all, thanks for your mail. It is good to adress these kinds of worries directly - and before the survey gets started. I actually get confronted with them often in my work. I personally think we do not need to worry. In most projects I worked with, people tend to agree with me at latest at the end of the project ;) Let me explain a bit - I hope you put the worries aside as well: We are not asking people how to build the bridge in terms of e.g. static calculations. These have to be done by an engineer. No discussion about this. What I try to do with this survey, is to ask users / the community to report about their life - or to stay in the picture: let them imagine where the bridge could be built and how the existence of the bridge would change their life. answers could tend to be more how they want their life or how they want to be seen as rather that the reality, it may be not completely useless tough Yeah - all answers will be biased somehow. This is true simply by the research method we choose. We - as the designers and creators of KDE - will have to understand and believe what people say. And we will use only what makes sense to us to create a vision, personas, etc - and at the end software. people as possible into the development of (Free) Software Products. This will lead to better products, more (loyal) users, more advertising and more volunteers that participate, e.g. in bug triaging or translation. People will identify with a product they feel they have influenced - they will get a feeling of self efficacy. Of course this will not be the result of a one-time survey, but gathering experiences with this kind of approach might bring us into the situation of a cultural change in KDE, that is less developer-centric and more focussed on the users. completely agree that a cultural change like that is somewhat needed, and this survey is not useless in that regard, even tough probably of a somewhat limited help, we have to take that data as something informative, but something that has to be interpreted beyond what it seems to say (ie beyond what users think they need) we should always remember that user led is never exactly a good approach http://uxmag.com/articles/user-led-does-not-equal-user-centered Nobody ever suggested to do a user-led approach, to stick in the terminology of the article. Even though I have a somewhat more differentiated view on the topic than it is been layed out in the article, the main points are correct (ok, the article is short and hence has to simplify things). There is a quote that is supposed to be said by Henry Ford: If I had asked people what they want, they would have said faster horses. This is - sorry - the bullshit approach of letting people tell me what to do. This not how working with users works. When I talk about user research here, I always have in mind to let people tell about their life, their fears, their experience - areas they are absolute experts in. This is why I tried to formulate the questions on the first page to be close to peoples actual experience. The second page is actually an experiment. As Aaron pointed to the existing vision, I tried to get feedback on what is beeing said there. My experience is: A good vision can be tested by end-users. I had a lot of problems (and still are not 100% satisfied) transforming our vision into something I think could perhaps be testable. In this matter I actually think the vision is not as good as it could be. One outcome of the sprint could perhaps be a better formulated vision. An end-user testable vision. It might in the end not state anything different than now, just be formulated in a way, people can understand better. In the end: User research has to start somewhere. When we finish the survey, we will know much better, what we should have asked. And we will simply use this knowledge to make an even better next survey. I am very happy you agree on the need for some changes in the culture. Let's start to experiment! Thanks again for your feedback Cheers, Björn Cheers, Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel -- Dipl.-Psych. Björn Balazs Business Management Research T +49 30 6098548-21 | M +49 179 4541949 User Prompt GmbH | Psychologic IT Expertise Grünberger Str. 49, 10245 Berlin | www.user-prompt.com HRB 142277 | AG Berlin Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer Björn Balazs ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Tuesday 05 June 2012, Björn Balazs wrote: Nobody ever suggested to do a user-led approach, to stick in the terminology of the article. Even though I have a somewhat more differentiated view on the topic than it is been layed out in the article, the main points are correct (ok, the article is short and hence has to simplify things). There is a quote that is supposed to be said by Henry Ford: If I had asked people what they want, they would have said faster horses. This is - sorry - the bullshit approach of letting people tell me what to do. This not how working with users works. When I talk about user research here, I always have in mind to let people tell about their life, their fears, their experience - areas they are absolute experts in. This is why I tried to formulate the questions on the first page to be close to peoples actual experience. yeah, i think we are on the same page here :D Cheers, Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
2012/6/5 Marco Martin notm...@gmail.com: On Tuesday 05 June 2012, Björn Balazs wrote: Nobody ever suggested to do a user-led approach, to stick in the terminology of the article. Even though I have a somewhat more differentiated view on the topic than it is been layed out in the article, the main points are correct (ok, the article is short and hence has to simplify things). There is a quote that is supposed to be said by Henry Ford: If I had asked people what they want, they would have said faster horses. This is - sorry - the bullshit approach of letting people tell me what to do. This not how working with users works. When I talk about user research here, I always have in mind to let people tell about their life, their fears, their experience - areas they are absolute experts in. This is why I tried to formulate the questions on the first page to be close to peoples actual experience. yeah, i think we are on the same page here :D Agreed. Also, I'd like to point out that the results will be interpreted and explained by someone (Björn) who knows how to do that, and will instruct us in how to take the best advantage out of them. So it's not just a random user study done by $developer which is likely to be interpreted in the wrong way. Sorry to say that, but this seems (yet again) much ado about nothing, and most of all (reason why I care) slowing down a very useful thing for the sprint, putting focus on pointless discussions instead of getting the actual job done. I seriously doubt anyone in this list is more knowledgeable than Björn over this topic, so as I said in the other mail: PLEASE put some trust on your bros (because we're striving for the same things), especially if they have a track record of competency, getting things done, and dedication to KDE. Back on topic: overall, I just went through the survey and it looks good to me, can't wait until it goes online. Will try my best to spread it everywhere I can. Cheers, Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday, June 4, 2012 23:57:22 Björn Balazs wrote: What I try to do with this survey, is to ask users / the community to report about their life - or to stay in the picture: let them imagine where the bridge could be built and how the existence of the bridge would change their life. and having done this for more than a few years, i'm telling you that these people tend not to have a good idea about that exact set of questions. By this, the only thing we do is looking for inspiration as input for our sprint. i understand that and appreciate the motivation. it's not a good way to go about it however. Most of what you say about how good products are developed is right. Just your preassumptions are wrong. We are not asking users to code, neither to provide solutions, nor do we promise to do anything... It really has the simple task of getting inspired. i don't think you understood my email. i also think you are judging the knowledge and skills of someone you don't know. be careful with that. you seem to be assuming things about my background, experience and knowledge ... and those assumptions seem to be pretty wide of the mark. so ... when we ask What is your personal biggest wish for the future of KDE? (the very first question on the survey) that is asking for people to come up with what they want and they will perceive that as offering solutions. there is also an implicit promise in return, in their minds, because they are spending time (giving it to us) to fill this out .. if we don't act on it, then why did we ask? there are three key ingredients that influence the results: * the survey (which are extremely hard to get right; my wife does this for a living and i've had the opportunity to hear all sorts of fun and funny stories on this topic) * the audience * the interpreters this kind of survey can not be thrown together quickly and get good results. especially not by someone who is new to this area of interest, as you're learning the topic your trying to research in tandem. bad survey results = bad project decisions. the questions in the survey, as is, are really poor quality and that is almost entirely because it has been written by someone who does not understand that which they are asking for input on. the audience is also very particular in this case. we will not reach our entire user base, only a very select subset of them who are rather different than our overall user base. and these people have some very interesting and reliable traits, such as how they read implied promises into things. i know this from experience with them. and i don't want to spend the next 2 years after this little event having to deal with KDE developers don't listen to users. i've been there, done that, please do not put me back there again. the third ingredient, the interpreters .. that's us. and right now we're a group of people with varying experience and a difference in levels of team integration. it will be very hard to work on an interpretation of external data together until we sort out a few of our own topics first. Another aspect is, that I think it is most important to involve as many people as possible into the development of (Free) Software Products. This that's a fine idea; this kind of survey is not how to do it. That said, I hope you will agree, that we might not benefit from this survey, but we will surely not do any harm by starting the survey. So why not take the chance? because it will do harm. i've explained why in my last email. perhaps you can read it again and if you have questions about specific points i made, instead of dismissing them wholesale, you could inquire and we could hold a dialog on them. as it stand right now, this survery is not appropriate and i do not want to see it going out. i'm saying that as the maintainer of this project and someone who has been providing effective leadership for it for the last several years. i ask you to respect that. As time progresses and we need some time to run the study, I will delay the start a bit. If anyone still feels uncomfortable with it, I would ask to actually post a 'veto' with the next 18 hours (that would be 18:00 in CEST). i already did pass a veto with my last email. -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday, June 4, 2012 22:49:35 Alex Fiestas wrote: Tokamak 5 is (wrongly?) understood as the Plasma team sprint, this sprint is not only about plasma but instead about How we move the workspace forward. It is actually closer to the Active sprint. Tokamak, or any sprint, is what we make it. pushing ourselves away from assumptions is half the battle, and this may be a reasonably good place to start. if we called it Tokamak, how many of you would, right now knowing what you know, not attend or attend in a negatively different way? if the answer is nobody then my suggestion would be to create continuity and take the name Tokamak. you, the attendees, can work on expanding what it means at the sprint to cover what we want it to, what we see ourselves (all of us) as, where we want to go and what we want to work on. one thing about terms like Next Workspace Iteration - it creates a bias as to what will be achieved at the sprint. obviously, it's about iterating the workspace to make something new out of it! right? well, we don't actually know that. at the event it may come out that something very different, or a set of different things, is needed. next and iteration are words that create a direction before a direction can even be understood. workspace is about the only word that works there, and as you note, there's no solid agreed understanding of what that means if we sum up all of our thoughts on the matter. (individually: yes. together? you said it yourself that we haven't achieved that..) that's what i love about Tokamak. it's a fun word and it really means nothing. we can go into each sprint with a clean sheet to tackle whatever it is we need to at that sprint without pre-bias and with continuity between all the meetings. -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday, June 4, 2012 23:32:08 Alex Fiestas wrote: On Monday, June 04, 2012 11:00:56 PM Sebastian Kügler wrote: That might come as a surprise, but Plasma == Active Making a difference between those (and the KDE workspace) only makes sense in a very limited scope. There's only a technical difference, but as we're explicitely excluding technicalities and focus on vision, just assume they're the same. Workspace == Plasma Exactly the point I did before. This is something Plasma team (as in you, notmart, ivan, aseigo) think, doesn't mean everybody else does. so embrace it now that you know it. instead of saying well, we didn't know in the past so we can't do it this way now perhaps say ah, now i see. ok, let's take that into consideration and run the sprint in a way that reflects that. fact is, i've told you that plasma == active and workspace == plasma many times already. here on the mailing list, on irc ... yet you still write as if you don't know this, or perhaps that you disagree and would like us to take plasma and active and leave. can you help me understand why this is? -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Tuesday, June 5, 2012 11:23:15 Björn Balazs wrote: We - as the designers and creators of KDE - will have to understand and believe what people say. And we will use only what makes sense to us to create a vision, personas, etc - and at the end software. you can't make sense of something for which you do not know the validity of. or put another way: garbage in, garbage out. the survey will generate garbage because the questions are poorly phrased. i do not think this is due to incompetence on your part, but to not having a firm understanding of that which you are trying to research. secondly, doing this survey will create certain expectations and discussions in a certain sub-group of our user base that will not be helpful to us. those two facts taken together are why what you suggest as the outcome is not possible to achieve in this case given the survey and the audience in question. is: A good vision can be tested by end-users. I had a lot of problems (and still are not 100% satisfied) transforming our vision into something I think could perhaps be testable. probably because you are taking the description of a technical vision and are trying to find out how it maps to user benefit. yes, that is very difficult to test. it requires a deep understanding of both ends of that equation. if you want a user benefit vision, that can be supplied. i think this highlights that you do not, at least right now, have the necessary qualifications to write a survey on this particular topic. so instead of jumping ahead of the game and delivering a mess, which if history is anything to go by i will innevitably end up being tasked with cleaning up, let's focus on sharing knowledge with each other at this sprint, formulating a set of common team understandings and then move from there. -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
2012/6/5 Aaron J. Seigo ase...@kde.org: On Monday, June 4, 2012 23:32:08 Alex Fiestas wrote: On Monday, June 04, 2012 11:00:56 PM Sebastian Kügler wrote: That might come as a surprise, but Plasma == Active Making a difference between those (and the KDE workspace) only makes sense in a very limited scope. There's only a technical difference, but as we're explicitely excluding technicalities and focus on vision, just assume they're the same. Workspace == Plasma Exactly the point I did before. This is something Plasma team (as in you, notmart, ivan, aseigo) think, doesn't mean everybody else does. so embrace it now that you know it. I have this feeling these mails are running towards my way or the highway, and I don't really like that. Unless proven otherwise, the work people attending to the sprint are doing mostly belongs to the workspace. If we ARE part of Plasma, Workspace, whatever, we also take part in defining its vision/direction/whatever. Hence this kind of statements are quite contradictory from my POV. instead of saying well, we didn't know in the past so we can't do it this way now perhaps say ah, now i see. ok, let's take that into consideration and run the sprint in a way that reflects that. fact is, i've told you that plasma == active and workspace == plasma many times already. here on the mailing list, on irc ... yet you still write as if you don't know this, or perhaps that you disagree and would like us to take plasma and active and leave. I think nobody wants to see anyone leave here, so please don't even try to play this game, it doesn't benefit anyone and doesn't help in keeping the discussion constructive. Yet, I think that everyone thinks that his opinion should be valued as one, and not just subdued from the directors. Maybe that's the first reason why this sprint could be useful. can you help me understand why this is? -- Aaron J. Seigo ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
After treading the whole thread, it seems that there are people concern that the survey can do more bad than good, at least when it comes to the whole workspace. Maybe we can do a hang out (G+ thing) to sort thigns out? emails are shitty medium to talk these things and come to an agreetment. Do you have time tomorrow for hanging out ? :p ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
Hi all, I have tuned the survey a bit. Now I need feedback esp. to one question. To make it easy for you, here it is: - Following we have listed a couple of ideas that could be important for a bright future of KDE. Please rate how important you think they actually are! Skale: Very important Not important at all * Adapt to the task the user is currently doing (e.g. provide a different UI when writing a letter or writing a novel) * Scale interfaces with the ammount of information * Direct manipulation of interfaces rather than using configuration files * Organic or natural look feel * Support the fact that people get interrupted in their work * Support the user to access the right data * Support users to work on different tasks at the same time - Do you have ideas for other issues? Do you have ideas how to rephrase issues in a better way? For all that would like to give feedback to other aspects of the survey - you can see the draft (still not recording anything) here: http://userweave.net/survey/7f4f81901c85419183e34e83f33f7096 I want to start the study tonight, tomorrow morning the latest. Thanks for your help! Björn Am Sonntag, 3. Juni 2012, 19:25:05 schrieb Björn Balazs: Hi all, I have prepared a survey to gather wide input for the Sprint next week. I want to start the survey tomorrow evening (Monday, CEST), and I would like to get some feedback from you guys untill then. THE SURVEY DOES NOT YET RECORD ANYTHING (So, please do not spread the link untill I say 'go') http://userweave.net/survey/7f4f81901c85419183e34e83f33f7096 I have tried to build upon the vision formulated by Aaron. Target audience is everyone (user and developers - even not-yet-users). I am happy about any kind of feedback on this (including typos - sorry I am not a native english speaker) So next to feedback on the survey, I would be glad if you could help to spread the word once the survey is started. Ideas on this are welcome as well (Perhaps a dot-story? Facebook, Twitter anyone?) - But again, plaese wait with actual spreading the word untill I say 'go' ;) Thanks, Björn -- Dipl.-Psych. Björn Balazs Business Management Research T +49 30 6098548-21 | M +49 179 4541949 User Prompt GmbH | Psychologic IT Expertise Grünberger Str. 49, 10245 Berlin | www.user-prompt.com HRB 142277 | AG Berlin Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer Björn Balazs ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
pad - tablet please Anne-Marie On 06/04/2012 05:12 PM, Björn Balazs wrote: Hi all, I have tuned the survey a bit. Now I need feedback esp. to one question. To make it easy for you, here it is: - Following we have listed a couple of ideas that could be important for a bright future of KDE. Please rate how important you think they actually are! Skale: Very important Not important at all * Adapt to the task the user is currently doing (e.g. provide a different UI when writing a letter or writing a novel) * Scale interfaces with the ammount of information * Direct manipulation of interfaces rather than using configuration files * Organic or natural look feel * Support the fact that people get interrupted in their work * Support the user to access the right data * Support users to work on different tasks at the same time - Do you have ideas for other issues? Do you have ideas how to rephrase issues in a better way? For all that would like to give feedback to other aspects of the survey - you can see the draft (still not recording anything) here: http://userweave.net/survey/7f4f81901c85419183e34e83f33f7096 I want to start the study tonight, tomorrow morning the latest. Thanks for your help! Björn Am Sonntag, 3. Juni 2012, 19:25:05 schrieb Björn Balazs: Hi all, I have prepared a survey to gather wide input for the Sprint next week. I want to start the survey tomorrow evening (Monday, CEST), and I would like to get some feedback from you guys untill then. THE SURVEY DOES NOT YET RECORD ANYTHING (So, please do not spread the link untill I say 'go') http://userweave.net/survey/7f4f81901c85419183e34e83f33f7096 I have tried to build upon the vision formulated by Aaron. Target audience is everyone (user and developers - even not-yet-users). I am happy about any kind of feedback on this (including typos - sorry I am not a native english speaker) So next to feedback on the survey, I would be glad if you could help to spread the word once the survey is started. Ideas on this are welcome as well (Perhaps a dot-story? Facebook, Twitter anyone?) - But again, plaese wait with actual spreading the word untill I say 'go' ;) Thanks, Björn ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
Am Montag, 4. Juni 2012, 17:23:09 schrieb Anne-Marie Mahfouf: pad - tablet please Thanks - changed it. Björn On 06/04/2012 05:12 PM, Björn Balazs wrote: Hi all, I have tuned the survey a bit. Now I need feedback esp. to one question. To make it easy for you, here it is: - Following we have listed a couple of ideas that could be important for a bright future of KDE. Please rate how important you think they actually are! Skale: Very important Not important at all * Adapt to the task the user is currently doing (e.g. provide a different UI when writing a letter or writing a novel) * Scale interfaces with the ammount of information * Direct manipulation of interfaces rather than using configuration files * Organic or natural look feel * Support the fact that people get interrupted in their work * Support the user to access the right data * Support users to work on different tasks at the same time - Do you have ideas for other issues? Do you have ideas how to rephrase issues in a better way? For all that would like to give feedback to other aspects of the survey - you can see the draft (still not recording anything) here: http://userweave.net/survey/7f4f81901c85419183e34e83f33f7096 I want to start the study tonight, tomorrow morning the latest. Thanks for your help! Björn Am Sonntag, 3. Juni 2012, 19:25:05 schrieb Björn Balazs: Hi all, I have prepared a survey to gather wide input for the Sprint next week. I want to start the survey tomorrow evening (Monday, CEST), and I would like to get some feedback from you guys untill then. THE SURVEY DOES NOT YET RECORD ANYTHING (So, please do not spread the link untill I say 'go') http://userweave.net/survey/7f4f81901c85419183e34e83f33f7096 I have tried to build upon the vision formulated by Aaron. Target audience is everyone (user and developers - even not-yet-users). I am happy about any kind of feedback on this (including typos - sorry I am not a native english speaker) So next to feedback on the survey, I would be glad if you could help to spread the word once the survey is started. Ideas on this are welcome as well (Perhaps a dot-story? Facebook, Twitter anyone?) - But again, plaese wait with actual spreading the word untill I say 'go' ;) Thanks, Björn ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel -- Dipl.-Psych. Björn Balazs Business Management Research T +49 30 6098548-21 | M +49 179 4541949 User Prompt GmbH | Psychologic IT Expertise Grünberger Str. 49, 10245 Berlin | www.user-prompt.com HRB 142277 | AG Berlin Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer Björn Balazs ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
This survey is a good idea, thanks for starting it.
-
Following we have listed a couple of ideas that could be important for a
bright future of KDE. Please rate how important you think they actually are!
Skale: Very important Not important at all
* Adapt to the task the user is currently doing (e.g. provide a different UI
when writing a letter or writing a novel)
* Scale interfaces with the ammount of information
ammount = amount
* Direct manipulation of interfaces rather than using configuration files
I don't think configuration files are really relevant anymore, we should rather
compare direct vs indirect manipulation of content. I mean for example moving
an element by dragging it instead of adjusting its position using spinboxes.
Not sure how to sum it in a short sentence though.
* Organic or natural look feel
* Support the fact that people get interrupted in their work
* Support the user to access the right data
* Support users to work on different tasks at the same time
I would like to add two other ones:
* Support collaborative work (1 content, N users)
* Support multi-device workflow (1 content, N devices)
So next to feedback on the survey, I would be glad if you could help to
spread the word once the survey is started. Ideas on this are welcome as
well (Perhaps a dot-story? Facebook, Twitter anyone?) - But again, plaese
wait with actual spreading the word untill I say 'go' ;)
dot + facebook + twitter + identi.ca should provide a wide enough coverage I
think. Maybe also post a link on forums and/or kde-{apps,look}.net?
Aurélien
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Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday 04 June 2012, Aurélien Gâteau wrote: nt at all * Adapt to the task the user is currently doing (e.g. provide a different UI when writing a letter or writing a novel) * Scale interfaces with the ammount of information ammount = amount * Direct manipulation of interfaces rather than using configuration files s/configuration files/configuration dialogs/ still doesn't catch 100% of the scenario but clearer already? -- Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Sunday, June 3, 2012 19:25:05 Björn Balazs wrote: I have tried to build upon the vision formulated by Aaron. Target audience these are the emails i really struggle with writing. on the one hand, i'm really excited that people have the enthusiasm to do this kind of work and are putting the effort in to make it happen. i don't want to blunt that one bit. in fact, i want to encourage it. on the other hand, i'm confident that this approach will result in a train wreck. so i'm suck in a position where i want to encourage the motivation but discourage the application of it. it is hard to do both at the same time, and i hope i don't screw it up completely :) so ... why do i think this will be a train wreck? for the same reason i should never, ever be asked by the engineer responsible for building a new bridge in my city how i think it should be built. i don't know. it isn't my area of expertise. i'll come up with SOMETHING for them if they really want me to, but my answer is going to be pretty naive. there is no way i can do better because i lack both the training and that data needed to formulate great input. that describes 99.9% of our users when it comes to these kinds of questions. over the years i've found that when i observe, for instance, that people have lots of files many will say no i don't. then i walk them through all the files they have: emails, music, video, pictures they took with their camera and/or phone, bookmarks, ebooks, work/school docs ... it's usually pretty fun to actually tally it up with them because most people do not realize the extent of their data. and that's the easiest and most obvious part of the sentence I have huge number of files, devices, people I know, network services I use and I use my computer for multiple and very different tasks (e.g. work, entertainment, personal communication, school). next: when you ask someone what they want, if you don't deliver it, you will disappoint them. so this survey is askking for ideas that are probably unworkable while simultaneously setting up our most ardent users for disappointment all at once. :/ it gets better though: someone may want the best twitter+facebook platform EVARRR111!! but that may simply not turn us on as developers. we may find that maybe 1 or 2 of us will work on it. and maybe they won't even understand why the best twitter+facebook platform evar is useful or important, they just do it for their love of our users. the result will be flat, uninspired and probably not as good as if they were making something with a philosophy they understood. the opposite direction is a lot easier: formulate a vision, understand it, know it, breath it, love it ... our users will too. so IMHO and IME this is going about it in exactly the opposite direction if we want a great chance at good results. in a phrase: this is not how to do it. the upcoming sprint needs to, must be, driven by people who will be involved in making the solutions and who understand the challenges intimately and with a reasonable degree of topic appropriate competence. so before we go and create problems for a project i've put a number of years into and am now trying to turn into a day job for myself and others .. let's discuss HOW to get the information we want before we start implementing such methods. an even better starting point might be to discuss WHAT information we need. or .. we could wait until the sprint starts. i can do a bit of an orientation via a google hangout with the attendees to point things in a reasonable direction. this is what we have done for the last 3 years, and tokamaks have been remarkably productive. p.s. and why isn't this Tokamak 5 and instead morphed into the nebulous Next Workspace Iteration Sprint which does nothing to build on the community platform we have going here, alienating just about everyone because it is neither known (and therefore comfortable) nor well defined (literally it means: we're doing something next .. iteratively .. in the workspace .. but what exactly?) -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday, June 04, 2012 08:17:27 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: p.s. and why isn't this Tokamak 5 and instead morphed into the nebulous Next Workspace Iteration Sprint which does nothing to build on the community platform we have going here, alienating just about everyone because it is neither known (and therefore comfortable) nor well defined (literally it means: we're doing something next .. iteratively .. in the workspace .. but what exactly?) I can answer to this. Tokamak 5 is (wrongly?) understood as the Plasma team sprint, this sprint is not only about plasma but instead about How we move the workspace forward. It is actually closer to the Active sprint. In the same way we had various people attending the Active sprint that weren't part of the plasma/active team (Dario, Aleix, Laszlo, Me) in this sprint we will have people from different projects (like telepathy, frameworks, solid) that want to work on the workspace and move it forward. Then, there seems to be a misunderstanding in the community we should solve on the sprint, some people believe that Plasma is the shell, not the entire workspace while other think that Plasma is the entire workspace, hence we call now the workspace KDE Plasma Desktop instead of XX Desktop. I consider the sprint as an impasse between now (messed names, confusing communities, etc) into the next thing where all this small issues should be fixed. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday, June 04, 2012 22:49:35 Alex Fiestas wrote: On Monday, June 04, 2012 08:17:27 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: p.s. and why isn't this Tokamak 5 and instead morphed into the nebulous Next Workspace Iteration Sprint which does nothing to build on the community platform we have going here, alienating just about everyone because it is neither known (and therefore comfortable) nor well defined (literally it means: we're doing something next .. iteratively .. in the workspace .. but what exactly?) I can answer to this. Tokamak 5 is (wrongly?) understood as the Plasma team sprint, this sprint is not only about plasma but instead about How we move the workspace forward. It is actually closer to the Active sprint. That might come as a surprise, but Plasma == Active Making a difference between those (and the KDE workspace) only makes sense in a very limited scope. There's only a technical difference, but as we're explicitely excluding technicalities and focus on vision, just assume they're the same. Workspace == Plasma In the same way we had various people attending the Active sprint that weren't part of the plasma/active team (Dario, Aleix, Laszlo, Me) in this sprint we will have people from different projects (like telepathy, frameworks, solid) that want to work on the workspace and move it forward. Same thing here: - by attending a sprint about Plasma/Active, you are by definition part of it: you contribute, otherwise you wouldn't be there - Might make it easier: You can easily be taking part in more than one project. Aaron struck a note here that explained to me why I hadn't registered earlier to the sprint -- simply because I didn't feel part of it. By changing the name, you get that kind of result, and I don't think it's actually a desired one. Cheers, -- sebas http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org | GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9 ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
Aurélien, Marco, thanks, changed the survey accordingly. Björn Am Montag, 4. Juni 2012, 18:35:13 schrieb Marco Martin: On Monday 04 June 2012, Aurélien Gâteau wrote: nt at all * Adapt to the task the user is currently doing (e.g. provide a different UI when writing a letter or writing a novel) * Scale interfaces with the ammount of information ammount = amount * Direct manipulation of interfaces rather than using configuration files s/configuration files/configuration dialogs/ still doesn't catch 100% of the scenario but clearer already? -- Dipl.-Psych. Björn Balazs Business Management Research T +49 30 6098548-21 | M +49 179 4541949 User Prompt GmbH | Psychologic IT Expertise Grünberger Str. 49, 10245 Berlin | www.user-prompt.com HRB 142277 | AG Berlin Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer Björn Balazs ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday 04 June 2012, Alex Fiestas wrote: I can answer to this. Tokamak 5 is (wrongly?) understood as the Plasma team sprint, this sprint is not only about plasma but instead about How we move the workspace forward. It is actually closer to the Active sprint. maybe that's exactly the problem maybe a communication problem. maybe maybe a listening problem maybe maybe both of those. false distinctions are pretty hard to get out of the mind, there are a series of things some of us are convinced there are no distinctions.. difficult to explain we mayjust continue to try ;) -- Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
On Monday, June 04, 2012 11:00:56 PM Sebastian Kügler wrote: That might come as a surprise, but Plasma == Active Making a difference between those (and the KDE workspace) only makes sense in a very limited scope. There's only a technical difference, but as we're explicitely excluding technicalities and focus on vision, just assume they're the same. Workspace == Plasma Exactly the point I did before. This is something Plasma team (as in you, notmart, ivan, aseigo) think, doesn't mean everybody else does. In the same way we had various people attending the Active sprint that weren't part of the plasma/active team (Dario, Aleix, Laszlo, Me) in this sprint we will have people from different projects (like telepathy, frameworks, solid) that want to work on the workspace and move it forward. Same thing here: - by attending a sprint about Plasma/Active, you are by definition part of it: you contribute, otherwise you wouldn't be there - Might make it easier: You can easily be taking part in more than one project. Aaron struck a note here that explained to me why I hadn't registered earlier to the sprint -- simply because I didn't feel part of it. By changing the name, you get that kind of result, and I don't think it's actually a desired one. You can take this same argument and put it the other way around. If we call this Tokamak (implicitly Plasma sprint) people such as myself won't attend because I didn't consider myself Plasma (until recently anyway). That need fixing on the sprint as I said :) ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
Aaron, all, thanks for your mail. It is good to adress these kinds of worries directly - and before the survey gets started. I actually get confronted with them often in my work. I personally think we do not need to worry. In most projects I worked with, people tend to agree with me at latest at the end of the project ;) Let me explain a bit - I hope you put the worries aside as well: We are not asking people how to build the bridge in terms of e.g. static calculations. These have to be done by an engineer. No discussion about this. What I try to do with this survey, is to ask users / the community to report about their life - or to stay in the picture: let them imagine where the bridge could be built and how the existence of the bridge would change their life. By this, the only thing we do is looking for inspiration as input for our sprint. Most of what you say about how good products are developed is right. Just your preassumptions are wrong. We are not asking users to code, neither to provide solutions, nor do we promise to do anything... It really has the simple task of getting inspired. (I have actually changed the first page a bit, to more actively adress, that we do not promise anything). There are of course superior techniques to understand users (you mention observation) - but we are simply not in the position to do this right now - and there also surely is room for improvement in this survey. I would love to take some more time to let it mature more - but I am sure that the inspiration we get from it, will benefit the results of the sprint - so I personally think it is ok to start it now as it is. Another aspect is, that I think it is most important to involve as many people as possible into the development of (Free) Software Products. This will lead to better products, more (loyal) users, more advertising and more volunteers that participate, e.g. in bug triaging or translation. People will identify with a product they feel they have influenced - they will get a feeling of self efficacy. Of course this will not be the result of a one-time survey, but gathering experiences with this kind of approach might bring us into the situation of a cultural change in KDE, that is less developer-centric and more focussed on the users. That said, I hope you will agree, that we might not benefit from this survey, but we will surely not do any harm by starting the survey. So why not take the chance? As time progresses and we need some time to run the study, I will delay the start a bit. If anyone still feels uncomfortable with it, I would ask to actually post a 'veto' with the next 18 hours (that would be 18:00 in CEST). If there is none, I will start the study and post it on the planet. Hope this ok for everyone. Of course, I am more than happy about any suggestion for an improvement of the survey. Personnally I hope I find some time tomorrow to look at it again. Cheers, Björn Am Montag, 4. Juni 2012, 20:17:27 schrieb Aaron J. Seigo: On Sunday, June 3, 2012 19:25:05 Björn Balazs wrote: I have tried to build upon the vision formulated by Aaron. Target audience these are the emails i really struggle with writing. on the one hand, i'm really excited that people have the enthusiasm to do this kind of work and are putting the effort in to make it happen. i don't want to blunt that one bit. in fact, i want to encourage it. on the other hand, i'm confident that this approach will result in a train wreck. so i'm suck in a position where i want to encourage the motivation but discourage the application of it. it is hard to do both at the same time, and i hope i don't screw it up completely :) so ... why do i think this will be a train wreck? for the same reason i should never, ever be asked by the engineer responsible for building a new bridge in my city how i think it should be built. i don't know. it isn't my area of expertise. i'll come up with SOMETHING for them if they really want me to, but my answer is going to be pretty naive. there is no way i can do better because i lack both the training and that data needed to formulate great input. that describes 99.9% of our users when it comes to these kinds of questions. over the years i've found that when i observe, for instance, that people have lots of files many will say no i don't. then i walk them through all the files they have: emails, music, video, pictures they took with their camera and/or phone, bookmarks, ebooks, work/school docs ... it's usually pretty fun to actually tally it up with them because most people do not realize the extent of their data. and that's the easiest and most obvious part of the sentence I have huge number of files, devices, people I know, network services I use and I use my computer for multiple and very different tasks (e.g. work, entertainment, personal communication, school). next: when you ask someone what they want, if you
Survey to prepare 'Next Workspace Iteration' sprint
Hi all, I have prepared a survey to gather wide input for the Sprint next week. I want to start the survey tomorrow evening (Monday, CEST), and I would like to get some feedback from you guys untill then. THE SURVEY DOES NOT YET RECORD ANYTHING (So, please do not spread the link untill I say 'go') http://userweave.net/survey/7f4f81901c85419183e34e83f33f7096 I have tried to build upon the vision formulated by Aaron. Target audience is everyone (user and developers - even not-yet-users). I am happy about any kind of feedback on this (including typos - sorry I am not a native english speaker) So next to feedback on the survey, I would be glad if you could help to spread the word once the survey is started. Ideas on this are welcome as well (Perhaps a dot-story? Facebook, Twitter anyone?) - But again, plaese wait with actual spreading the word untill I say 'go' ;) Thanks, Björn -- User Prompt | Psychologic IT Expertise Inh. Björn Balazs | +49 179 4541949 Grünberger Str. 49 | 10245 Berlin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
