Tuesday, June 03, 2008

RTFM

Linux is user-friendly. Gone are the days of "RTFM". Yeah, right.



How much extra effort would it have taken to provide, in the widget, a link (or at least a clue!) to the Fine Manual?

What about more options for the user. What do you mean "Don't show me this again"? Ever? What if I want to ignore the error for now (the computer is still working, so I want to actually use it) but come back to it later? If I want to file a bug, how in the name of ${DEITY} can I figure out what "product" or "component" to file it against?

Sorry for the rant. After having watched the excellent Lug Radio Live USA videos (thanks!), particularly Aza Raskin on "Humane Computing", and Benjamin Mako Hill on "Revealing" errors, (here is the schedule of links to the talks), I'm a bit sensitive to this sort of thing.

Yeah, I know you get the same BS on legacy systems. But if we want people to adopt Our Favourite System, we have to be so much better that the benefits will outweigh the barriers to, and costs of, adoption.