Re: [Usability] Gnome Volume Manager

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 21:30 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> Anyone else think "Gnome Volume Manager" is a terribly confusing name?
> 
> Initially (before I looked at it) I assumed it was referring to
> Audio Volume, rather than _devices_ (devices, hard drives, disk
> drives or whatever you want to call it) which is not an unreasonable
> assumption based on the ambiguous name.
> 
> I would think something like "Gnome Device Manager" might be less
> confusing.

It doesn't manage devices.  It only manages disk volumes.  If it managed
devices, that would mean that it handled things like my mouse, my
monitor, my printer, and so on.  Talk about ambiguous... ;-)

Volume does work, however, as the term "volume" has been in use for 20+
years.  Its meaning is well known.  A slightly more accurate name might
be GNOME Media Manager, but then people would confuse it with video and
audio playback or something.  GNOME Removable Media Manager might be
best, but then, that's a really big name, and since any experienced
computer user has encountered and should be familiar with the term
"volume" already, it seems really goofy to go and break a lot of crap
(tons of packages, documentation, web sites, etc.) for the name change.
Especially considering the following point.

The name isn't a usability issue in any imaginable way, because "GNOME
Volume Manager" is not at all exposed in the UI, anywhere, nor should it
be.  The only people every coming across the name are people installing
stuff from RPMs or source or whatever, and hopefully they're smart
enough to figure it out.