[ubuntu-art] Who is our target audience?

[julian]

..on Thu, Dec 27, 2007 at 01:59:53PM -0800, Ken Vermette wrote:
> On Dec 27, 2007 5:45 AM, Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ at freenet.de> wrote:
> 
> >
> > On Thu, 2007-12-27 at 14:01 +0100, julian wrote:
> >
> > > as i've said earlier, i'm into the idea of a public vote on mockups (and
> > > including the current theme) made by list members within the first two
> > > 6-8 weeks of each release cycle. i think most of the time ubuntu-art is
> > > shooting in the dark, so to speak, where envisaging a best-fit default
> > > theme is concerned; choosing externally asserted design agendas over
> > > plentiful public/user opinion.
> >
> > With 'public' votes, you can only reach an internet-affine,
> > high-interest part of users. Hardly anyone who's just a potential, not
> > current user. Hardly anyone who just has better things to do.
> >
> > Plus forum (list and chat) dwellers can't be expected to care about
> > marketing/branding and about the needs and wishes of other people that
> > aren't represented directly.
> >
> > I don't care much about how people on the forum would vote. Such a vote
> > doesn't even transport full opinions. I care about informed opinions and
> > decisions.
> >
> > Input on the forum can be nice for tweaking details, but that's pretty
> > much it.
> >
> >
> I'm against votes as well; There fundamentally flawed. If there are 3
> choices that are all bad, why force users to make a bad choice. We'll know
> the best of the worst choices, but it will still be bad.
> 

votes are always 'flawed', just as any democracy is: the so-called right
are more statistically like to vote, a vocal minority on the internet is
likely to dominate an opinion channel.

nonetheless i think it's important to not be too black and white about
this. 

at present we have incidental, contingent feedback, rather than a
directed context for Ubuntu users to suggest mockups and express
criticism. of course there will be organised bias and abuse - just as
there is anywhere opinion finds voice on the internet - but it is still
better than the patchy guesswork we have now. it's clear from reading 
comments in forums that many who suggest mockups aren't even aware of 
this mailing list. 

even mockups to this list are distributed across several wikis and sites 
in a way that is not productive when getting a sense of the overall scope 
of contributed designs.

what i'm talking about is not too dissimilar from this:

	http://gimp-brainstorm.blogspot.com/

.. but with comments and a section dedicated to feasible default theme
candidates. a rating system may be useful also, though not as a statistically 
deterministic guide. 

even if due to sheer numbers of submissions many are unseen and/or
ignored, i'm sure we'd see inspired contributions that would only
positively stimulate the design directions taken by contributors to this 
list.

how would this not be generally useful, all things considered?

-- 
julian oliver
http://julianoliver.com
http://selectparks.net