[Computerbank] more standardised install discussion needed ASAP

Craige McWhirter craige at mcwhirter.com.au
Wed Nov 28 08:09:11 UTC 2001


On Tue, 2001-11-27 at 22:24, Dale Long wrote:
> On 27 Nov 2001, Craige McWhirter wrote:
> > Yes, this is a technical given. The reason for choosing an application
> > framework like KDE or GNOME on an exclusive basis has nothing to do with
> > what can technically be done but what a non-technical user will grok and
> > find productive. 
> 
> The differences are minimal. A KDE theme will apply to the WM managing a
> GTK/Gnome application for example with minimal 'confusion' for the average
> user. It is about as confusing as seeing WinAMP skins under Windows or
> XMMS skins under Linux/BSD (Windows manager/environment of your
> choice).
> 
> AbiWord and Gnumenric fit in quite happily with a KDE desktop and so on.
> The menus look slightly different.

The point is, to many users, what you and I consider "minimal
differences" they find a major stumbling block. This is a fact, it
happens, especially among the less literate users. I've seen a roll out
come to a screaming halt because of icons looking different from one
version to the next (sure, that's an extreme case and it was in the US
but it happens in less extreme circumstances too). 

In a nutshell, the fewer surprises / differences we present to the users
the less work we will have in both support and traning.

-- 

Cheers,
      Craige.

http://mcwhirter.com.au/



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