Re: Plasma Next Naming

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:37 PM, 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"?
>

More people than 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.
>

Sure, I'm happy to see some proposals from those "categories".


>
> 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.
>

And there we have new konqi design, which is ridiculously cartoonish
(please anyone don't take as an insult or anything). And I remember Ossi in
the konqi thread raising this very question about us being for serious
business. It seemed it wasn't problem in that thread...


>
> > 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)
>

Then again - you have Ubuntu (changing every 6 months), OS X and I don't
know what else....and using an animal (weird ones in Ubuntu's case) works
good for all their purposes (including business)? Or is there any evidence
it's actually hurting them in some way?


> > 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.
>

Which is pretty much why it's up for comments ;)

Cheers
-- 
Martin Klapetek | KDE Developer


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