Feedback to the Dot story

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 05.09.2013 12:26, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Thursday, September 5, 2013 11:22:42 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
>> My suggestion:
>> "Plasma Active is a user interface from the KDE community intended for
>> tablets. It can be customized to work on smartphones, settop boxes,
>> smart TVs, and touch computing devices such as home automation and
>> in-vehicle infotainment."
>
> almost...
>
> Plasma Active is a user experience technology stack for consumer electronics.
> It currently *comes* with a slick user interface for tablets.
>
> Plasma Active is *not* the tablet UX, however.

Agreed, that's the most precise definition.

> (it is quite likely, btw, that Plasma Active will be slightly re-jostled with
> the Qt5 version of plasma. the tablet UX will use the new unified Plasma shell
> and become “just” another Plasma Shell Package. what will likely live on as
> Plasma Active is the system integration and application focus ..)

Makes sense.

>> That way we don't say "It cannot work on those devices", but nobody can
>> blame us if it doesn't work well as it is, because they'd have to
>
> agreed ...
>
>> Notice also that I intentionally did not include smart TVs and settop
>> boxes in "touch computing devices", because they are not, and probably
>
> who said it would be a touch interface?

Nobody did, not even me. Carl just wrote "touch computing devices such 
as settop boxes, smart TVs" and I corrected that because settop boxes 
and smart TVs are not touch interfaces. That does _not_ mean PA cannot 
be used on them, of course. I just moved the "touch devices such as" 
after settop boxes and smart TVs so that now it says that those are not 
touch devices, but PA still works on them (with a UI optimized for 
remote controls, of course).

> Plasma, in general,does not believe in exclusionary input method modalities.
> Plasma Active as a whole is focused on consumer electronics; we’ve only
> focused on the UX for tablets for a variety of practical reasons.

Of course.

>>> This release is intended to complete the evolution of Plasma Active
>>> to a polished product from its proof of concept first release.
>>
>> I would not call PA4 a "Polished product" yet. It's still for early
>> adopters only, ordinary consumers would still hate us for PA4.
>
> i suppose i should go take it away from the ordinary people using it then?
> or tell the reviewers that said it was the best tablet UX they’ve used that
> they were obviously mistaken?

Reviewers are not ordinary people. I had a group of students run a 
usability test with about 20 other students (mostly mechanical 
engineering). They gave PA below-average ratings on pretty much all 
aspects, stating that they really like the general ideas behind it, but 
find that it lacks in various key areas (not feature-wise, but they way 
they work).
These subjective findings were of course supported by numerous big 
objective problems they faced.
Reviewers appreciate the general idea, which they should. They see where 
we're heading, which they should.
But if you give it to some ordinary consumers (even with an introduction 
of key features, without that they're totally lost and I have data to 
prove that as well) and give them some tasks to complete, they get lost 
and they get disappointed, even though they, too, like the general concept.
To me, this is not a "polished product", this is still an (advanced) 
early adopter / developer version. And since we target early adopters 
and devs, why do we call it "polished product"?

> i have given up trying to get you to abandon such abstract perfectionism, but
> i’d appreciate it if you’d keep such proclamations out of discussions here.
>
> the software works quite nicely (better than some other options out there
> being foisted on “ordinary consumers”) and if we wait for some perfect moment
> of wonderment pouring out of baby angel’s eyes, we may as well just delete the
> repositories and stop the project right now.
>
> real products ship. real products are not perfect. yet somehow people use them
> and even fall in love with them.

Release early, release often, I know. That's what all FOSS should do and 
most do. But e.g. Simon or KTp give their - already pretty mature - 
products 0.X version numbers and say they'll call them 1.0 when they 
find nothing really missing anymore (that doesn't mean they cannot be 
improved anymore, though).
I know this isn't about version numbers, but I've never heard David call 
KTp a "polished product", either (even though I think it's more mature 
right now than PA, which is understandable given that creating an IM 
client based on an existing framework is way easier than creating a 
whole new shell plus all the basic applications).

> iOS came without multitasking or a clipboard or system notifications or a
> hundred other Really Important Features Every Ordinary Consumer Absolutely
> Requires but *somehow* managed to gain the hearts and minds of many.
>
> Apple did that by focusing on what iOS did well and provided opportunities for
> the people for whom those things were enough.
>
> please stop preventing Plasma Active from achieving its potential by telling
> people it isn’t ready for them. you are not then, and Plasma Active works.

I have anecdotal evidence, and I have a scientifically sound usability 
test. Being a scientist, I believe in the results from the test, and 
those results tell me that PA is on a very good path, but even version 4 
still needs a lot of work before it can be called "polished".
Btw: Sorry that I cannot give you the hard data yet. The students are 
still writing up their results (they've only given me a sneak peek so 
far) and they're in German, so as soon as I get their report, I'll 
summarize and translate the key findings.

I don't mean to say that we did bad work, because we didn't. We did 
great work, but we still have more great work to do before we have a 
"polished product". PA4 is great, but still very "rough" in a whole lot 
of ways.

>>> client-side touch-optimized email application
>>
>> Kontact Touch has been part of PA for a long time and nothing has
>> changed about it since then. So it's definitely not new in PA4. Michael
>
> agreed; what I do wish was in the article was a list of things Plasma Active
> comes with (touch-friendly groupware including email and calendaring; file
> management; etc.) so people don’t forget or people new to it understand what
> is there.

Yes. That's also what we agreed on during the release marketing meeting, 
but somehow it turned into a "what's new" anyway. Maybe the paragraph 
should be renamed to "What Plasma Active 4 offers" and contain 
everything important and cool, regardless of when it was introduced.