Re: My usability experience - Asa Dotzler should be fired

SmoothPorcupine wrote:
> I'm afraid I'm going to have to correct you here. I don't expect
> you'll want to hear it. I honestly expect it's one of those things you
> reaffirm for yourself to keep yourself sane and moving forward. It's
> the lie that keeps the UX team (which I personally see as the source
> of all that is "bad" in Firefox) from being torn apart by the "power
> users" that made Mozilla a thing.

Protip: If you want the UX team (and me) to listen and respond to your 
comments, may I humbly suggest that you not open your comments by 
insulting us.

> They /are/ dumb. They are not good at computer. They will readily tell
> you so. All of them. My brother, who logs into Facebook by putting
> "Facebook login" in the search bar, as do millions; my mother, who is
> afraid to do anything if data disappears from view, for fear of losing
> it, who barely understands tabs, and wont grasp the concept windows
> before she dies; my sister, who knows what a URL is and can recognize
> one when she sees it, but does not know how to read the content of the
> URL; and, hell, even my father, who once made a disk driver for the
> Commodore 64, will all readily admit that modern software is far
> beyond their comprehension.

Mozilla Mission is to empower these users. That is why we're here. I 
don't agree with your characterizations, but even if I did, that's the 
challenge we would face.

That challenge may not be interesting to you, but it is at the core of 
why Mozilla exists. It's as simple as this: Mozilla exists to help these 
people.

> Sure, I'm biased here, because I'd like to get more people using
> SeaMonkey, which inevitably results in more developers, both of the
> browser and for add-ons. My bias comes from my decision to use
> SeaMonkey. My decision to use SeaMonkey comes from my bias against
> dumbed down interfaces designed for the masses. My aversion to dumbed
> down interfaces comes from my biased understanding of the technologies
> involved. (Positive bias on that last one.)

I'm glad that you have SeaMonkey. I put a lot of blood sweat and tears 
into making that possible, you know :-) I'm thankful to the current 
group of people who continue to maintain SeaMonkey so that you can have 
a piece of software that suits your needs.

> If you're a "power user" who can sympathize with my biases, then from
> a fellow "power user," I personally recommend SeaMonkey.
>
> Firefox has "made it." Now let's go "make" SeaMonkey.

Sounds like a plan. Maybe you should point to the documentation where 
people can figure out how to get involved with SeaMonkey. I'll offer a 
link but I'm not sure if it's the right one.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/community

- A