Investigate the needs of normal users

[Erik Jan Philippo]

Hi,

A few days ago I was watching the Edgy launchpad page. One of the 
entry's get my attentions: 
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/what-do-non-geeks-want I 
think the developers should listen more to normal users, but I don't 
think it's a job of them. Another team should investigate what everyday 
users expect from their computers and what the biggest problems are. 
Maybe it's a job of the desktop team?!?

We should make a survey with a lot of questions like: what's the main 
purpose of your computer?, which other thinks do you like to do?, what 
is the biggest problem with your computer? etc.... We should brainstorm 
on it. If it's finished we make a website where people can answer them, 
off course multiple chose. We ask all the ubuntu users to gave it to 
their parents, family and neighbors. After it we have a lot of 
information about normal users. Maybe a lot of people like to see a 
photo manager which support easy e-mail functionality, generating html 
pages for the Internet, easy resize tools in it.... It's just an 
example. A lot of people are doing the same (mainstream) things on the 
computer. Making documents, have contact with friend, manage and edit 
photo's. Those tasks should be as easy as possible. The main reason why 
ubuntu is so popular is because it's easy. Just like win98 years ago.

To finish my story, what do you think of it? Start (several?) a 
investigation/survey to find out how normal users think of computers. If 
we have the information we can make good en clear proposals of it and 
developers can do their main thing: program software.

Greeting,

Erik Jan

By the way, how is my English? It's not my first language