On Wednesday 05 April 2006 09:21, dolphinling wrote: > Lourens Veen wrote: > > - File bugreports (personally, I find Bugzilla very confusing, and > > I'd like to see something that is friendlier to end users and > > yields better bug reports) > > I wouldn't expect end users to file bugs in hardware, or even in > drivers. Applications is one thing--my program doesn't do what I tell > it to!--but an end user doesn't really have any idea what he's > "telling the graphics card to do". Thus I'd say most outside people > filing bugs would be experienced software or hardware developers, and > would be able to find their way in a developers section.
However, if an end user has a problem, we would like to help them, and we would like to get the problem fixed. So there has to be some connection between an end user with a problem and a developer fixing the bug that causes it. Now, to a developer, a bug report is ideally a set of information that describes a problem with the product. The problem should be a real problem with the product, and not be the result of incorrect expectations or misconfiguration. There should be enough information to reproduce the problem, and no irrelevant information. To an end user, a problem can be just about anything that does not go according to expectations and seems to be related to the product. The user probably doesn't know much about the technology involved, and doesn't want to know either. They just want the problem fixed as quickly as possible. Ideally, they want to take a coffee break, have someone look at it in the mean time, and have everything working when they get back. Unfortunately, that's probably rather hard to arrange, unless we invent a teleportation card that can digitise a troubleshooter and send him/her over (that'd probably sell well by the way, if it wasn't too expensive). The next best thing is probably talking to some support expert personally on the phone or via IRC or something like that. My experience with IRC support channels is that there are usually a whole load of people logged on, but they're all idle, and the people who aren't can't solve your problem. Perhaps that's too negative, but anyway, using IRC is not exactly as basic an end-user skill as browsing the web, so there should be a place to go on the web site as well. The Ubuntu support forums seem to be pretty popular as well as successful at helping people, and a forum is probably more accessible than a Bugzilla. On the other hand, it doesn't often yield very exact bug reports. So, what if we combine the two? Have a sort of support wizard that lets people ask for support, points them to the relevant documentation, searches earlier support requests, and if that doesn't help, makes a new thread/bug report/support request. The support requests can be browsed as if they were a forum, and replies can be posted with advice. The support request also has a bug report form attached that can be edited by each poster, wiki style. It gets filled out as much as possible initially with information from the wizard. If the problem is not a bug in the product, the bug report form will remain unused, the user is helped in the replies, and when done, the request can be closed. If there is in fact a bug in the product, the user and/or people helping them determine the exact problem will fill out the bug report form in detail and submit it. Its contents are then fixed so they can't be edited anymore, and the support request will show up in the queue in the developer's corner. The developers can get a quick idea of the problem from the information in the bug report form, and read or post in the support request to get additional information. Once the bug is fixed, the support request is closed. This insulates end users from developers in the same way that Traversal Technology insulates them from business people and sales. Of course, there is nothing that says that a person can't be developer and a support person at the same time; heck, they can be an end user too! But this way, a person primarily interested in writing code or HDL or designing PCBs can improve his work by fixing bugs, without having to wade through a sea of bad bug reports. At the same time, the end user gets a more friendly support environment than a Bugzilla interface with lots of technical info required and no help in figuring it out. Lourens, who unwittingly wrote an essay again...
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