[Kde-pim] jargon is bad! :)

[Anne Wilson]

On Monday 22 March 2010 20:38:46 Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> On Monday 22 March 2010, Sven Burmeister wrote:
> > Am Dienstag, 16. März 2010 09:06:22 schrieb Thomas McGuire:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > On Tuesday 16 March 2010 02:40:03 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > > ok, so the point of this email is to note the obvious: displaying
> > > > jargon to the user is bad. the average computer user does not
> > > > know what "compositing", "akonadi" or "nepomuk" are. they do
> > > > understand what "desktop effects"[1], "personal information
> > > > service"[2] or "search service" is.
> > > > 
> > > > in my testing of KDE 4 here with real, actual non-technical KDE
> > > > users (so not people who use MS Windows or Mac usually and are
> > > > randomly subjected to KDE for a testing session ;), something
> > > > that keeps coming up is the jargon that gets "leaked" out into
> > > > the UI.
> > > > 
> > > > this is not a small issue. it's the difference between "this is
> > > > difficult, hard and sucks" and "i like this". seriously, even in
> > > > failure people respond better when the messages they get are
> > > > understandable and human. few things freak people out more than
> > > > not understanding something they just read when it is something
> > > > they feel they probably need to (like an error message).
> > > > 
> > > > i've fixed up nepomuk once or twice (but jargon continues to leak
> > > > as new strings are added!), i've just looked through kwin's
> > > > messages and fixed them up (after testing the results on a user
> > > > here) and akonadi hasn't been touched yet (and is full of
> > > > visible jargon).
> > > > 
> > > > please spend the few minutes necessary to improve this. it is
> > > > really, really important. and please help prevent new strings
> > > > with jargon from creeping in.
> > > 
> > > I absolutely agree. In KDEPIM, we have to be careful about this.
> > > For example, we should use the term "Folder" instead of
> > > "Collection" and "Mail", "Contact" etc instead of "Item".
> > > 
> > > 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.".
> > 
> > I would not avoid using the term akonadi, since it is kind of a
> > trademark to promote. But one should use it as such, i.e. add it to
> > the non-jargon expression like: your email will be imported into the
> > central kde data storage (akonadi)...
> 
> Akonadi is no data storage. Moreover, it's completely independent of
> KDE.
> 
> Akonadi is a desktop agnostic PIM data access
> API/service/layer/whatever.
> 
And, oh yes!  the family will love that 'plain English' description! :D

Anne
-- 
KDE Community Working Group
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