Re: revised user types

[Erik Walthinsen <omega@omegacs.net>]

> I'd like to slightly amend Roger's really well thought out list. Before
> I do, though, perhaps the whole issue of the laptop platform should be
> re-examined.
arma and I discussed it quite a bit last night.  I'll see if I can make
heads or tails out of what we came up with.

>      I'm not so sure that we want to put laptop user as a specific type
> of user, mostly because they want to do pretty much everything everyone
> else wants to, more or less.
What it seems like we came up with is this: a user has a primary
personality, possibly secondary personalities as well:

( ) are radio buttons,  [ ] are check boxes

Primary:			Secondary:
( ) Home user			[ ] Home user
( ) Small/Home Office		[ ] Small/Home Office
( ) Specialty			[ ] Specialty
( ) Development/Technical	[ ] Development/Technical
( ) Business/Office		[ ] Business/Office
( ) IS/IT system		[ ] IS/IT system

But we also provide 'modifiers' to this process, to allow for things like
laptop usage, which change *how* you use the system, not what you want to
do with it.:

[ ] Laptop
[ ] Road Warrior
[ ] K-12 student
[ ] College student
[ ] etc.

I'm hazy on the inclusion of students in this list, as I'm inclined to add
that as a 7th category, or 7th and 8th if we find the distinction between
k12 and college to be too much.

> That said, perhaps the distinction should be made between the WAY in
> which these users use their machines - standup box (normal machine) vs.
> a laptop. Of course laptop support is needed, but I can see where it
> might go beyond that; dial in as well as network connections are very
> important. Another - IMO - important functionality would be being able
> to connect 2 machines using a serial or parallel cable to access each
> others' resources such as a program CD-ROM (somebody please set me
> straight if this already exists) - and the means to configure this,
> preferably via GUI. Win95 can do this, sort of, with the Direct Cable
> Connection - it isn't dependable, however (big surprise).
It seems that some of these questions belong in their own sections, i.e.
one on connectivity, etc.  But as you've pointed out, and I know
first-hand, having a laptop changes how you do things like networking.  I
am in need of some way to keep my home and office networks connected, with
a laptop that can roam between the two.  Obviously, I'm a special case,
but the point is that there are a number of major differences between
usage patterns of desktops and laptops.

> What I'd like to add here - Educational users - would involve folks at
> the college / university level.
Don't forget k-12 users.

> - Academic / Scientific User
>     Use categories as Specialty / SOHO, maybe development. Used by
>     folks with wide range in understanding / capabilities. Use is
>     varied. Need to be able to store / backup / transfer large files,
>     esp. to a laptop. May or may not have access to net admin; may
>     have access to small lan or campus network.
Sounds good.

>     More food for thought. Looks like this is coming along quite well.
Yup.  I'll be looking into coding the backend for this pretty soon.  Once
we hash out how to place each user, I can develop some method to tailor
the questions to the user.

TTYL,
    Omega

     Erik Walthinsen <omega@seul.org> - SEUL Project system architect
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