This guy illustrates my point why an easily customizable interface is a necessary strategy for the adoption of Elisa. I suggest that for a media center to really stand out from the crowd, it needs to do two things right. Currently, no media center does both of these things. Elisa does one of these things.
1) open source plugin archetecture based on an existing adopted framework 2) a user interface with levels of customization that can be used even by non technical users. Your underlying archetecture is solid. It does a good job at future proofing elisa as far as media is concerned. That's the engineer's point of view. The other point of view that needs to be considered is the point of view of the user. The user isn't going to be impressed by the technical details of playback, they just expect that to work. The user is going to be impressed by the usability. Elisa excels on the things the user doesn't notice (playback just works, as it should), but does not stand out in the way that users *would* notice (interface). You can sink an infinite number of man hours into usability but eventually the "one size fits all" approach will show its limitations. Customization is vital, and every step this team makes towards encouraging the customization of the user interface will be repaid by the community in terms of adoption and in user generated content. Right now, even though elisa is open source, the barrier of entry for user interface customization is far too high. Any reduction of these barriers will encourage collaboration and will repay the "investment" of making customization easier. It will expand your userbase and it will encourage the formation of an *active* user community. (This will also help address the forum inactivity as well) I'd love to be on your UI design team. I'd be working on it already but I'm not technically proficient enough. (hint hint) I actually have mockups I can scan in if you're interested. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Vander Stichele Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 5:37 AM To: elisa Subject: [Elisa] points to improve on ? Ignoring the unpleasant tone of http://stream0.org/2008/01/elisa-033-media-centre-for-kid.html maybe it would be good to take a look at the criticism and find a solution ? Esp. the complaint about forums (which is one of the reasons I dislike forums, they do not work unless you go there each day and look at all new posts as a team) I think should be taken to heart. If Elisa wants to have a forum, it should be dealt with appropriately. Let me know what you think, Thomas
