Logical and relevant [Was: Filesystem - hiding system folders?]

[Tristan Wibberley]

Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Peter Garrett">
> 
>> I'm all in favour of making good GUI tools - but I genuinely find it
>> puzzling when people make the assumption that users are intimidated by a
>> quite logical file system structure...
> 
> Logical is not always 'intuitive' and doesn't rule out 'intimidating'. You
> really have to ask what it *means* to people who don't care to learn about
> or understand it. If it doesn't mean anything, why put it there?

That is a very good argument for removing the OpenOffice Base icon from
Applications. It won't mean anything to most users, but it should still
be there for those that use it. When I had cable TV, I received TV5,
which was all in French and it didn't mean anything to me - but I didn't
freak out and get rid of cable because of that (I did it because of the
lack of quality programming), nor did I think that it should be hidden
until the viewer finds an obscure option in the cable menu "Enable
French channels".

The ability to customise is good, but things like / are so far out of
the way, that it would be a mess to add configuration options for them
all, and that would be even more daunting for new users.

> The stuff
> we love about 'logical' FHS organisation is utterly irrelevant to the broad
> majority of users who care more about what they can do with a computer than
> how the computer gets it done. All of this stuff is dull machinery. It may
> be very interesting machinery to you and I, and we'll hold strong opinions
> about which way the machinery should work [1], but to someone like my Mum,
> it's just a huge pile of pointless drivel that gets in her way of grokking
> how to do what she wants to do.

Has she ever needed to go there? If not then it doesn't matter if it has
things in it, if she has, then it probably ought to represent what is
actually there. My parents are (or were) totally computer-clueless and
they couldn't have cared less - the Filesystem icon would just be
another "I don't use that one" icon like OpenOffice Base, Evolution,
Character Map, Terminal,  AisleRiot Solitaire, Ataxx, Blackjack, ... and
I could go on for a long time - all these icons can be closed by the
user that goes there by accident and it is no bother - just like a /
window. But I think these things should just be left there for the
people that might care.

> Apple went half-way with OS X. While they hid a bunch of stuff, they still
> exposed chunks of their own machinery (quite different to *nix machinery,
> but still machinery). Mac OS <= 9 was pretty good in this respect, with a
> couple of fairly safely tucked away locations for computer machinery, but on
> the whole, very satisfyingly learnable and tactile. (There will always be
> more levers and buttons in a computer than on a car, and it's likely that
> you can learn about all of the levers and buttons on your car but only some
> of the ones on your computer, but ideally you'd learn what you can in very
> similar ways.) We can probably do better - eventually - and it does not
> necessarily imply FHS-incompatible changes to do so.

Ubuntu is already easier than a car since the user can close the /
window and still get on with their work, you can't just shut the bonnet
and go somewhere else to top up the oil (except a couple of models).

> Always remember that what's logical or relevant to you may not be logical or
> relevant to your user. Given that you're posting to a mailing list about a
> FLOSS project (let alone the chit-chat geektalk sounder list), I'd be pretty
> comfortable saying that *most* of what's logical or relevant to you about
> computers is not so for the majority of (current and potential) computer
> users. :-)

But the question remains... could those users possibly care less? A
hoover has loads of parts and fanbelts and things, etc, when you examine
it closely, but my grandmother didn't get confused. She just didn't look
at it closely more than once - yet she still managed to keep the house
clean without having a nervous breakdown, and if you made those parts
difficult to find, her son's would never have been able to learn how to
fix it and the hoover would have cost her a lot in maintenance contracts.

I think the root directory is, like boot screen logging, one of those
things that people think is bad for new users only if they're an expert,
and new users will just ignore it.

-- 
Tristan Wibberley