idea: kpersonalizer to ask for user 'type'

[Adriaan de Groot]

On Wednesday 18 February 2004 13:29, you wrote:
> Adriaan de Groot wrote:
> > As Stephan already said: there are different views on what level people
> > are and what a particular type implies - as well as that we can get into
> > endless bikeshedding over what one particular type would want.
> > Let's put it another way: I'm having an identity crisis. I need your
> > advice on which type I am. My computer stands at home. I code for KDE
> > CVS. I'm a computer scientist who does proof theory on the machine. I'm
> > also a geek with  glasses. So which type do I fill in?
>
> Lets assume KPersonalizer would first greet you with:
>
> Getting to know you. Are you a
> x Home User
> x Office User
> x Power User
>
> You're saying you couldn't find yourself from this?

I'll click "home user". Now you tell me exactly what that means for my desktop 
settings, and why. Preferably with numbers, like "we asked 500 people what 
they would click. Of those that said 'home user' (243), we asked them what 
their preferred settings for the following features F1...F24 are; results are 
as follows: F1 on 72% F1 off 18% F1 don't care 10%, F2 on ..." . 

If you don't _know_ there is a correlation between what people pick on this 
question and the settings they want, you might as well ask:

Getting to know you. Do you like
x Fluffy bunnies
x Leather underwear
x Answering Poll Questions

because the validity of your settings is the same (after all, everyone who 
wears leather underwear wants a konsole button on kicker).

Note that I'm not saying it is impossible to do this, or that it's 
fundamentally a bad idea. I do claim that for this to be a usability 
_improvement_, you need to be sure that your categorization matches what 
people want. 

As far as that goes, George's suggestion on -core-devel is pretty good: 
instead of categorizing a user, just let them pick from a bunch of predefined 
profiles, possibly with some tuning afterwards. That asks a user straight 
out: what do you _want_ as opposed to trying to guess what they want based on 
their predilection for kinky garmets.

-- 
pub  1024D/FEA2A3FE 2002-06-18 Adriaan de Groot <groot at kde.org>
                     Would you like a freem?