Enrique Vega wrote:
> The only thing that I can say to possibly give you developers any insight to
> where folks like me are coming from is to simply state:
>
> k e e p i t s i m p l e
> a n d
> m a k e i t w o r k !
>
> What I mean by keeping it simple, is to make sure that the basic program
> works flawlessly and that the user interface is so intuitive, that an end
> user who only knows how to browse the web can make sense of the program.
Point well taken. Making it work in a narrow technical sense
is a lot easier than making it simple and easy to use. Internet
users are a heterogenous lot with an awesomely wide range
of skills and approaches. It's really worthwhile to get someone
from the nontech world to sit down in front of a computer and
try out stuff you've been working on... a truly humbling
experience whenever I've tried it.
A lot of what we do depends on achieving a higher level of
functionality by incrementally extending the experience of
users into new territory. I don't think this lends itself to
static solutions. It's a process of constant adjustment and
improvement, and in a distributed open source development
environment where we may not have easy access to test
facilities, the techs have to rely pretty heavily on the
nontechs to provide feedback and advice, as Enrique
has done, about things they have problems with. I think
that's a really valuable role for the nontechs on the list
play.
Paul N.
http://www.commentext.org
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