Re: [Usability]Definition of "desktop" - was a Usability topic.

[Alan Horkan <horkana tcd ie>]

On 21 Nov 2002, Matthew Berg wrote:

> Date: 21 Nov 2002 16:44:51 -0500
> From: Matthew Berg <galt gothpoodle com>
> To: GNOME Desktop List <desktop-devel-list gnome org>
> Subject: Re: [Usability]Definition of "desktop" - was a Usability topic.
>
> On Thu, 2002-11-21 at 14:28, Luis Villa wrote:
>
> > > GNOME is never shipped in isolation, it should be designed to drop in
> > > as a part of the complete user experience.
> >
> > GNOME is, however, developed in isolation. It's one thing if 'ls' has no
> > branding, but if a project of several million lines of code does not
> > effectively convey to users 'here is who we are, here is why you should
> > help us' then we're going to be 100% dependent on vendors very, very
> > quickly. That would be an utter shame. [FWIW, I don't think the menu is
> > the right place to do this, necessarily, but it's something we have to
> > think about very hard going forward. If GNOME's identity is to be just
> > 'something that gets packaged with a distro', we've got very little
> > long-term future as a community. And that would be an utter shame.]
>
> One of the things I like about GNOME is the lack of blitz branding that
> seems to be prevalent with KDE.  I don't need or want advertisements in
> my About menu, or every application to be named [BRAND] [APPLICATION].

Actually the nice thing about [BRAND] [APPLICATION] is that very often you
can just refer [APPLICATION] rather than having to get your head around
more bizarre _Gnaming_Konventions_

It is only a matter of time before the HIG explains to people to choose
meaninful names for their software!  [although every time i make grandiose
predictions i seem to get shot down and told that it will never happen
and at the end of the day they are only guidelines not rules anyone is
forced to folllow ;)]

g'bye

Alan