Hi,
I got some feedback from a user (David) that gave up on LyX after a quick
try. The last straw was conversion problem (importing a matrix from Excel
to something inside LyX). However, this particular reason is not why I'm
forwarding his feedback. David said:
I have no problem with forwarding it. Maybe my partial antipathy
can be found in the fact that I'm still more familiar with Windows
programs than with (originally) Linux applications.
I was trying to understand the reasons for David's general antipathy
towards LyX:
But this incident was just the drop in a bucket, ya know. There
was too much strange and "unconventional" behaviour. I'm sorry I
can't specify my criticism, currently I just can tell you of the
"bad feeling" ;) - there were just too much *small* things which
alltogether resulted in a negative experience when using LyX. If
you're also working much with computers, I assume you have a guess
what I mean ;).
So unfortunately it's not anything concrete, but he talks more about a
general feeling. I'm guessing it's caused by frustration when you don't
know how to do things. Perhaps it's related to the UI, and that the UI
isn't self-explanatory. Perhaps it'd be an idea if we could find someone
doing a master's thesis in man-machine interaction to do a study of LyX.
Or amybe it's a problem specifically for users that haven't read the
manual? Maybe the LyX window should have a big banner that says something
like "New user? Have you read the 'Introduction' and the 'Tutorial'? I
would guess that the problem for many users is that they haven't... (In
David's case, I don't know if he RTFM or not).
Anyway, I just thought I'd forward the feedback I got from David as a
general input. Maybe it'll trigger a useful discussion.
cheers,
Christian
