Re: gEDA-user: challenge from sci.electronics.cad

[Karel Kulhavy <clock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 08:31:40PM +0100, Svenn Are Bjerkem wrote:
> On Saturday 18 March 2006 17:08, Marvin Dickens wrote:
> > Most people who find gEDA difficult to use do not understand the work
> > flow and/or the
> > utility programs that glue the different applications together. It has
> > been my experience
> 
> This is true for *any* program used for EDA. The ones that are paid for 
> usually have a department of people to take care of these users. Support on 
> Free and Open Source most likely starts with RTFM which is what most 
> people /never/ do when they get something new between their hands.

This is not true. I looked into the manual from Burton snowboard
bindings and when I hit things like "LEASH - use this to walk your
ferret...", I could't help myself and had to read the whole manual plus
the box from all the sides. "Don't stand on the last step of a ladder",
"life has risks - snowboarding is one of them" etc.

If you insert things like this into the gEDA manual, people will be
unable to help themselves from reading it too.

Burton figured out how physics and material work. Burton figured out
how people's minds work. Therefore Burton is making good, successful
products and is popular. I like the bindings too.

Burton is not stupid and he can think. He knows that for the binding
to work properly, the setup must be done correctly. For the setup to
be done correctly, the user must know how to do it. For the user to
know how to do it, he has to read the manual. For him to read the manual
the manual must be so funny that he doesn't want to lay it aside,
because the actual payload information needed to get into his brain
is boring. 

If you do the same on gEDA, people will stop complaining about gEDA
being complicated and perceive gEDA to be superior compared to other
programs.  If you don't, people will say gEDA is difficult and will not
perceive it superior to the other programs.

The manual is a part of the product because without the manual, the
product is usable only with great difficulties.

Software product that's not only programming. It's neither only
programming and writing documentation. It also involves psychology,
marketing, ergonomy, which are sciences as well. If you can't figure out
malloc and free, it will not work. If you cannot figure out psychology,
it won't work either.

So my suggestion: think about various places in the manual and the
website to turn them into fun, self-irony or other mind-catching things,
and change them. Or draw a comic strip about gEDA.

If this mailing list can be full of humour, the manuals and the website
can be as well.

It's scientifically proven that human memory is way more effective in
storing information if the information is associated with emotion.
That's the scientific explanation why the Burton's idea works.

CL<
> 
> -- 
> Svenn