Hi, I did a Tor usability study recently, though admittedly with participants who were English speakers (though a large chunk were not US citizens and did not speak English as a first language). We termed a failure to DL the TBB as "download clarity", and found it was the one of the least cited usability issues.
I think the current UI is well tested and conveys information well. However, off the top of my head, two small tweaks could solve the OP's issues: 1.) Include small windows, apple, and tux logos on the download link on the main tor page... these could serve as a symbolic cue that it is a download link. 2.) Once on the download page, in the drop down list of languages that is defaulted to "English" include a US and UK flag. Include flags from representative countries in each language[1]. This is a common design pattern on sites being accesed by many people speaking many languages (eg: transit sites based in Europe) Personally, I wouldn't go beyond very minor tweaks to the current interface without a lab study showing that a statistically significant number of non-English speakers had trouble DLing Tor. -- Greg Norcie (g...@norcie.com) GPG key: 0x1B873635 [1] Admittedly this could get harder for say, Arabic - how do you pick one country? This would probably want to be debated as to minimize offense to nations not featured. On 10/15/12 3:20 PM, Andrew Lewman wrote: > On Sun, 14 Oct 2012 21:33:01 +0200 (CEST) > Outlaw <out...@omail.pro> wrote: > >> Hey there, Tor devs :) IMHO present torproject.org is very difficult >> for average internet user. For those who don`t know english well, it >> is almost impossible to find proper link. > > Hmm, the large purple and orange 'Download tor' button on the index page > was missed? > > We spent three months testing website designs based on real user > feedback and usability testing. The green box and purple download > button were designed to catch your eye first, and testing proves it > works. The testing included barely English-speaking users by design. > >> I think it is the question of resources - to provide multilingual >> website up to date, which Tor team just doesn`t have. So I have two >> suggestions that require minimal effort: > > We had one, and it was mostly out of date and giving incorrect advice > in many languages. See > https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6851 for the current > discussion about re-enabling website translations. > >> 1. Easy one. Make a static link like >> "https://torproject.org/download/torbrowser-win-latest.exe" > > No. This is a bad idea because then everyone thinks they have the > latest tor, all the time. When people ask for support, they explain > they have the latest tor, when really their version is 3 years out of > date. > > Our answer to this is a secure updater, codenamed thandy. See > https://gitweb.torproject.org/thandy.git/blob/HEAD:/specs/thandy-spec.txt > for the details. We just received some funding to implement this over > the next year. > >> 2. A bit harder. Make a page for each language and OS with script that >> starts downloading latest release: >> "http://torproject.org/download/win/de" for example. Advantage of this >> method will be that you can provide some message, like version or >> other important stuff. > > We have this already. When you click the big download button on the > homepage, you are sent to > https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en. There are > language drop-downs for the 13 TBB translations. > >> People like one big red button DOWNLOAD and nothing else, > > Consider Tor as a sophisticated as a formula 1 race car. Just because > you have a drivers license and can drive a nice sedan on the street > doesn't mean you can hop into a formula 1 car and even get out of the > pit lane without killing yourself. > > People who don't want to read the warnings, and just want to > download and run, are dangerous. They will de-anonymize themselves. At > best, they disclose they wanted privacy, at worst, they get arrested, > tortured, and killed while their family is blacklisted for life. > > We are working on improving the usability of Tor to help users make > smart decisions. Research takes time and thought. The same process goes > for the website. > > Our website is free software, with the repository located at > https://svn.torproject.org/svn/website/trunk/. Feel free to submit > patches of your ideas to improve the usability of the site. > > Thanks for the feedback. > _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk