Start new session...

[Thomas Zander]

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 10:26:00PM +0200, Oswald Buddenhagen wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 08:36:48PM +0200, Thomas Zander wrote:
> > This is far too technical. Many terms are unknown to the target audience.
> >
> but we don't want to dumb down the users. the correct solution would be
> using the technical terms and explaining them in parentheses, even if
> this does not look so well.

Your idea is admirable; but I'm afraid not well placed.  In my experience
with users and warning etc; they don't like to be interrupted. Period.
So; keep it short and very light reading. Otherwise you'll be ignored.

 
> > <b>Warning</b>: on some machines running multiple screens can crash the
> > machine.
> > 
> you want to hide the potentially interesting fact, that the driver is
> the problem. instead of thinking about a driver upgrade the user should
> think "nah, this f***ing box is crap", or what?

Telling the user where the problem is is like telling someone smoking will
'put tar on the alveoli which will severely deminish its capacity to take
up nutrients'.

Now; does that stop you from smoking?

A simple warning is all you can give the user and if the problem actually
does occur you might be lucky that the user will remember 10% of what you
said.


> > When pressing 'shutdown' in kdm, is there a message?
> > 
> no, that's todo. that's not a five-minute-hack.
> 
Before or after 3.1 ?

> > What happens when I login, can I then select 'sessions' ?
> >
> no. this was never possible when a session was started. why should an
> explicit "start new session" feature make it possible? this are two
> orthogonal features.
ok.

> > IMO the usability for sessions is hard enough to get 'right'. The
> > addition of a totally different feature that can sanely only be called
> > the same just makes it an awful lot harder.
> > 
> the only real problem here is, that currently "session" is used for
> "(saved) session state", which is technically wrong. a session is ...
> oh, well, see above.

Fine; but I can't tell a user that what he learned from us in the past
has to be forgotten.
Any alternatives?


> greetings
.. 
> -- 
> Chaos, panic, and disorder - my work here is done.
Mighty fine job! :}

-- 
Thomas Zander   zander at planescape.com
We are what we pretend to be