maemo.org - Talk - User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org

Quote:

Originally Posted by christexaport (Post 334310)

Glad to see this thread. Most new users are used to sharing or promoting ideas within the forums, but this site uses the Brainstorm section for this. This is fine, but it isn't evident when you get here that that is the way it is done.

Also, when you go to the Brainstorm section, its not organized or easy to navigate. Nothing is categorized, and some of the jargon used is foreign to non coders. Then you realize that even though you registered for the forums, you aren't given access to the Brainstorm section. I first thought it meant it was only for registered developers, but you have to register again just to participate or post a Brainstorm.

This site is huge, and all of the resources aren't easy to access by default. No design can fix that. We need ambassadors to welcome and indoctrinate new users.

An identifier should sit on user profiles as to who is a Maemo or tech blogger, user, developer, Nokia employee, OS/UI/UX designer for Maemo/Nokia, etc. because some position themselves as experts, but that isn't always evident or true, and you can't tell how accurate advice is.

Just a few things I noticed.

(I'm here all day. Feel free to talk via PM if you want more input.)

This +1
Its not that apparent where to look for the information you need, and as a complete noob, this is a site for developers, run by developers and can be daunting. Im active on alot of hardware forums and this place has a completely different feel to it which can be confusing/daunting.
I don't want to dis anyone as I have found the people on here friendly, helpful and glad to point people in the right direction - please re-read that last sentence as you all deserve credit

Once the n900 is released, you WILL have a massive increase in traffic with lots of noobs asking questions. If their hardware don't work, they will be on the nokia site, but software related things will find their way here.

I think you have to ask yourself a few questions though.

Do you want this forum to be primarily for developers?

How do you all feel about an incoming tide of users onto these forums.

Are you prepared for the gap in knowledge between yourselves and the noobs - I speak from personal experience here - the n900 will be many peoples first exposure to linux, and it is a very daunting step up from the world of windows.

Some people will be happy to stay in the gui and never get under the bonnet, but there will be alot of tech savvy people who are used to delving into windows, who will by default want to delve into the n900 and won't have a clue about what they see, but it will not stop then digging...

This could be your chance to welcome, help, teach and guide a new generation of programmers. Again, my own experience, apart from some basic vb scripting, I have never written a program. The n900 is making me want to, but the step up is not that well documented. Where do i start, Im trying to get my head around begining to learn linux as well as how to write a program?

You need a beginners guide to creating a widget maybe.
Step by step instructions to create your first 'hello world' widget, so that people can understand the process and then they can have that eureka moment, when they think they can adapt the example to make the widget do something else.

I can see the beginings of an effort on the development section, but you really do need more..

I really do suggest a beginners guide to programming for your n900 - hint hint

It was the app store that made the iphone, and it will be the apps that make the n900, the more people you have making them, the more original ideas you will have, often a noobs fresh outlook and ignorance about the rules can lead to some really simple but groundbreaking ideas..