Re: Plasma Next Naming

On 16 January 2014 18:37, Aaron J. Seigo <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thursday, January 16, 2014 18:13:23 Martin Klapetek wrote:
>> I can't speak for "the team" (whichever team), it's my own opinion and that
>> is that being more informal is simply more attractive to broader group of
>> people.
>
> a specific “broader group”, or do you mean “more people than Plasma appeals to
> now"?
>
>> Being overly technical just causes fear in many users - I know it
>> from around me where I installed some Linux distros - if I tell them
>> "you're using Kubuntu 12.04, which is a long-term-support release", they a)
>> have no idea what I'm talking about b) are scared of it because they don't
>> understand it.
>
> there are more options than “informal” and “technical”; “sophisticated“,
> "professional” and “inspiring” are three other options that occur quickly to
> me.
>
> i do agree that more technical (”jargon”) isn’t useful. i’m just wondering
> about the decision to go “informal”. whichever the direction is, it will
> influence expectations.
>
> it took KDE *quite* a while to get away from the “cartoony mess” caricature
> that kept getting used as a blanket criticism of everything KDE. this was our
> own “fault”: we had a cartoon of a wizard in one dialog, a cartoon of a dragon
> in several others, a cartoon style bubble on the window decorations and a
> very, very colourful set of icons.
>
> this isn’t to say that this was bad, it just led to people trying to convince
> others to not try KDE because it was “cartoony”.
>
> if the shift is towards “informal”, we probably need to prepare for the “it’s
> not for serious business” response.
>
>> Using animals (and hey, everyone likes nice colorful fishes) creates imho
>
> not in their software ... some love it (Hello, openBSD), but it will not speak
> to people who don’t get why a (changing) fish is part of the brand for a given
> desktop/tablet/etc. interface. as a more informal (and abstract) concept and
> may not play well with more formal contexts (e.g. business, or simply the
> straight-laced)
>
>> better association with the product - "I'm using that system with
>> clownfish" rather than "I'm using Kubuntu LTS". So that's why I think being
>> a bit more informal is a good idea, because these are the users we want to
>> attract, more skilled/knowledgeable users are deciding on other merits
>> anyway (on ones they do understand).
>
> interesting; so the expectation is casual users to  refer to the desktop
> environment version in conversation? e.g. along the lines of “kit kat” for
> Android? i’ll have to try to find data for this next statement, but it seems
> that it’s just another set of “more skill/knowledgeable users” who follow
> those code names.
>
> where this really will start to rub is if there is both a date based name and
> a fish based name, as it divides the users into four groups:
>
> * those who know and use both date and fish
> * those who know/use the date
> * those who know/use the fish
> * those who still don’t know either
>
> branding is usually more effective the more consistent / normalized it is.

+1 to all of Aaron's comments here.

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Claudia Rauch
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