On Fri, 2005-03-25 at 03:09, Daniel Carrera wrote: > Jacqueline McNally wrote: > > > Yes, but look at all the projects that do, particularly those > > development projects in which we are currently discussing: > > > > http://projects.openoffice.org/accepted.html
> Okay, I see it. The description doesn't say that it's supposed to be for > coordinating how a specification gets implemented. It says that it's for > announcing new features. So I'm not surprised most people haven't joined. This discussion seems to me to illustrate why systems such as user interfaces are not best tested by people who are familiar with them. If we want to increase participation we need to lower barriers to entry. To lower barriers to entry we need to see things from a newbies point of view. There is no doubt that the OOo site is almost unnavigable to a newbie. I'm still not that familair with it and tend to avoid using it because I simply haven't the time to spend searching for things. Is this inevitable given the size of the project? Maybe, maybe not, but where it is quick and simple to make improvements it seems sensible to do so. I am only subscribed to a minority of the OOo lists and I have difficulty keeping up with the ones I'm on. It simply is not realistic to expect every volunteer to be familiar with every list, and every aspect of the website, what it contains and how important it is. It would be interesting to get some computer literate new users to access the site and describe their experiences of trying to find things. From this we could get some evidence base of how things might be improved. However, there is not much incentive to carry out such an exercise if the perception is that no matter what the outcome things wouldn't change. Its the perception that matters, so we need to make sure that changes are seen to be made as a result of these debates rather than letting them dissipate into the aether. Following up threads with action points would be a start. -- Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ZMS Ltd --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
