On 6 Jun 2001, at 15:55, Marc Lehmann wrote: > On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 12:48:28PM +0200, Sven Neumann <sven@xxxxxxxx> > wrote: >> Overall I don't like the idea of treating the user like an >> idiot. There are probably a lot idiots out there and some >> of them will try Gimp one day but I feel sick and tired of >> putting too much development time into a user > > It's also the idiots who complain about things like "this program is > bad because i am unable to make it use a blinking theme". while people > that are delighted by a program rarely come and state that fact. A user is _never_ an idiot. If you feel that way, you may indeed as well only develop for yourself. Once you give a copy to a non- programming friend or neighbour for the first time, however, you have (IMHO) some moral obligation to care for the user friendliness of your program. This of course does not mean that you have to cater for those that are too lazy to indulge in some minimal form of self-education. Unfortunately, it is hard to find out if that is the case when receiving a stupid question from a user. Also, that which is a stupid question in one context may be a smart one in another context. A web master who knows www.gimp.org inside and out may think that 'where is the Windows version?' is neither here nor there, sinds www.gimp.org is not the distribution point for the Windows version. A usability expert would disagree with you however, for numerous reasons that I would be glad to go into in a separate message if anybody would care to hear them. As to how to solve this eternal problem: if I knew, I would not call it an eternal problem. The best thing to do IMO is to make sure that information is always available to the user as best as possible. And that means: keeping the web site up to date, making sure the documentation is complete, et cetera. Aside: as a translator for the GIMP, I am caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I firmly believe that having a translation will make it harder for the slightly advanced user: how is (s)he to know that what all the GIMP-related sites refer to as 'gradient' is called 'verloop' in Dutch. OK, they could look that one up in the dictionary, but I am sure that there are phrases in the GIMP translation that, due to their relative novelty, are not in but the most recent dictionaries. The reason I am doing those translations at all, is because I also believe that having a translation available will help to educate most new users, and those users whose demand of English is not what they think is, and other user categories I cannot think of right now. In other words, I am helping to present the information as good as possible. Getting back to updating the web site: Sven, I wrote to the webmasters@xxxxxxxx, to offer them my services in updating the current site, but I never got a reply. Could you tell me more specifically whom I should talk to? Thanks in advance. -- branko collin collin@xxxxxxxxx
