Interesting article on n00b usability

[Liam Proven]

2009/3/10 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
> This is someone coming from Windows to Ubuntu.
>
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126042
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9128990
>
> (I would suggest that answering "well he's just wrong about ..." would
> not be fruitful in making things discoverable.)

Some good points in there.

The update manager is a bit of a handful - I got the impression that
he just didn't install updates he didn't think he needed. That's
problematic. I think the big list of them all is unhelpful - I'd
probably collapse it down to 2 or 3 categories myself, "critical
updates", "recommended" and perhaps a 3rd category if that seems
necessary.

The problem of installing new apps is a hard one to get across. I used
to consider that it was a symptom of deep-seated Windows-ism, this
instinct to download a package from the Web and try to run it.

But on consideration, it's not a Windows-ism. That's what one does on
Mac OS X, too, and on classic MacOS, and on my Symbian and Epoc PDAs,
and on BeOS and Amiga and almost everything. It's even the default
method for PC-BSD, an open-source Unix which is a close relative of
Linux. Yes, the Ports system is there underneath for BSD-heads, but
they accept that users from majority OSs will expect to download a
package and then double-click it, so that's the packaging system the
developers have gone for.

I try to drill in to the heads of new Linux users, "when you want to
know how to do something, ask Google." If this chap had thought to
Google "install OpenOffice 3.0 on Ubuntu 8.04", he'd have found
guidance - but clearly this never occurred to him. And omitting
OpenOffice 3 was a serious hole in 8.10!

Not sure what to suggest. One possible answer that springs to mind is
a little app, installed by default and left in plain sight somewhere
obvious. Call it "Linux Advisor" or something like that. Give it a
list of common questions for Linux migrants, searchable via some easy
query method, and simple answers with web links for more info. Typical
questions might be:
 - "How to install new programs"
 - "How to install new programs that aren't in add/remove" (which is a
lot - I seldom use it)
 - "How to install new programs not provided by Ubuntu"
 - "How to connect to a shared drive on a Windows box"
 - "How to share a drive for a Windows box to connect to"
 - "How to connect to a printer on a Windows box"
 - "How to share a local printer with a Windows box"

The reason I suggest an app rather than a document is that people like
interactivity and don't like doing the work of searching a document
themselves. They also often don't know /how/ to search a document. You
could do it with hyperlinks, but a wizard-style thing like the Windows
"troubleshooters" might be more impressive.

Cooperative effort, perhaps, to find a list of the most common
questions? Aiming, ideally, for generic ones, not version-specific
advice. I'm happy to write a bunch of answers for the English-language
version.

No point in putting it on a web page when as this article - and my own
ample experience - demonstrates that it simply never occurs to many
people to look online. Especially the slightly older generation -
there are 20-to-30-year-old techs now who've grown up their whole
working life with Google to hand. 40-somethings, who already think
they know it all, are more likely to experiment with Linux and less
likely to think of looking online, I suspect.

Thoughts?

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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