[LAU] [LAD] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Devin Anderson]

HI Gabbe,

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Gabbe Nord <gabbe.nord at gmail.com> wrote:

> An idea is to make a popup that comes up occasionally (maybe once a month or
> so) when starting/closing the application. This popup could do several
> things that could increase the participation of users, for example:
>
> a) Provide encouragement for involvement. Like "Do you like this
> application? Help improve it by visiting our forums and let us know what you
> think!".

I think this is a good idea. :)

> b) Provide direct links to ongoing user surveys. This is a golden one for
> any application I really think. In UI-design, contact and feedback from the
> end-user (the people that actually use your application) is golden.
> Especially for smaller development teams, where you've been
> developing/designing the same application for very long, which of course
> makes every part of the UI natural and intuitive to you
> Since it's free and open source, people hopefully/likely won't mind helping
> out this way. Not everyone has the economy to donate actual money to all
> projects around there, but anyone can sit down and state pro's, con's and
> perceived issues with the software. You just need an incentive (that the dev
> actually care about what you think, and the fact that you can use the
> software for free is probably usually very well enough) and an easy way of
> doing it. An ongoing, shorter survey (5-10mins maybe) can give tons of very
> very valid and good information form your actual users.

I hadn't considered this.  If I created such a survey, I would be
concerned that my own bias would be injected into the questions
themselves.  Can you suggest a few sample questions that might exist
in such a survey?

> c) Provide an easy way to donate. Some people actually have a good income
> and can without a doubt donate money. Nicely asking to donate spare cash if
> you're satisfied could probably generate some donations this way, if people
> also are somewhat frequently reminded of it.

I could add a mechanism like this to (a).

> I have some experience of both UI-design and the principles around that, and
> also constructing good surveys, and I would love to help out in any way I
> can. Like someone else in this thread said, not everyone can code, but that
> shouldn't stop them from being able to contribute.

I can't speak for other developers, but I find your suggestions to be
very helpful.

On a personal note, I would absolutely love feedback on the UI design
of both midisnoop and synthclone.  I don't have a problem with either
UI, but UI design is *not* my forte, and I have a bias about the
intuitiveness of both UIs, given that I built them.

Thank you for all your help and feedback. :)

-- 
Devin Anderson
surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com

blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/