[Kde-pim] jargon is bad! :)

[Anne Wilson]

On Tuesday 16 March 2010 08:06:22 Thomas McGuire wrote:
> Sometimes, using the term "Akonadi" can not entirely be avoided, and I'm 
> unsure what to do about it. For example, when KMail can not work because 
> Akonadi is not running, we have to tell the user in some way, like "The 
> Akonadi PIM framework is not running, bla bla.".
> Another example: The mail import tool (still wrongly called KMailCVT) can 
> import mails into Akonadi, the mails can not just be used by KMail, but
> also  by other applications. Currently the introduction page there says
> "This program will help you import your email [..] into Akonadi". Any
> suggestion how to improve that? I'm quite sure normal users don't know
> what "importing into Akonadi" means, but saying "importing into KMail"
> would be plain wrong now.

While I agree with the principle of avoiding jargon as far as possible when 
addressing users. it's possible to become paranoid about it.  For instance, I 
spoke somewhere of PIM - and a developer attacked it's use - saying that it 
was not as universally understood as I thought.  Where do you stop?  We just 
do our best and hope.  Having said that, while I understand the thinking 
behind the re-branding effort, it has not been well received by users.  No 
amount of explanation makes it sensible in their eyes - at least, that's my 
experience in user support.

Now to Akonadi and Nepomuk.  I don't see a problem in using a name for a 
technology.  Where I do see a problem is that there is no easily understood 
explanation for users as to how the technologies fit together to give the 
results they want to see.  From the user point of view, why, when they see an 
error message about Nepomuk, am I telling them to read a userbase page called 
Akonadi?  I know it's not easy, but getting such explanations in place and 
easily found is a high priority.  (And yes, I know that the pages that revolve 
around Kontact and KMail need re-organising and probably re-writing as part of 
the clarification process.)

Anne
-- 
KDE Community Working Group
New to KDE Software? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-pim/attachments/20100316/e7315828/attachment.sig>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
KDE PIM mailing list kde-pim at kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-pim
KDE PIM home page at http://pim.kde.org/