krisse | # 31 | 2009-11-21, 20:12 | Report

The problem with that is it assumes technically-minded users are picking up all the signals and they are not.

The bugs I've championed on Bugzilla have been things that technical experts wouldn't consider bugs, such as the flash-shutdown, the fit-with-to-view etc. I was reporting them because I got so much feedback from ordinary users on Tablet School. If I hadn't been listening to ordinary users they wouldn't have been reported at all.

If there was a proper Nokia support forum for ordinary users to talk about it that would be great, but there isn't. There is a discussion forum on the Nokia website but there's never any official response to support problems. And trying to get a reply from Nokia's direct support numbers is highly inefficient because they will have to deal with each person one at a time.

It would make a lot more sense to have ordinary users report their bugs to a central list, and if they see the bug already listed then they could vote for it instead of repeating it. And that's what sites like Brainstorm do.

krisse | # 32 | 2009-11-21, 20:14 | Report

If there's a common configuration mistake which everyone makes, then that too is a bug, it's a design bug and should be treated just like any other bug.

Andre Klapper | # 33 | 2009-11-21, 20:17 | Report

I totally agree.

JosefA | # 34 | 2009-11-21, 20:18 | Report

That is sensible. I agree.

Hm. It strikes me as very likely that by the time a non-technical user has found out there's a bug tracker that they can submit issues to, they've already talked to a developer or more technical community member about the bug. So in the best case they have someone to walk them through their first submission and in the worst case if Bugzilla gives them permanent psychological trauma the person they were speaking to can file it. So, non-issue.

Andre Klapper | # 35 | 2009-11-21, 20:23 | Report

krisse, thanks a lot for the list.
It's appreciated.

I expect users to be able to know that the Browser was an application that was by default available on the system.
In case of being unsure you can click "All" and choose "Browser" from the list.
Repository: Good point. I wonder how to change the wording or elaborate (like "if you have enabled this in the Application Manager" maybe?)...

By clicking on "Severity", or by not touching it if being unsure.

This will all be hidden after upgrading to Bugzilla 3.4.

Device - either a Nokia device, or the OS on their computer in case of reporting an SDK bug. Any idea how to make this clearer?

I wonder which wording would be less techy. "Part"? :-P

That's explained in the Template, and default is set to "unspecified". Again this boils down to the issue that it might be unclear that reporters do not have to fill in everything.

This will be hidden in Bugzilla 3.4.

GNOME Bugzilla had a patch that changed the button name to "Save Changes" and I think it makes sense.

Yes, we should get rid of that.

Good points.

RevdKathy | # 36 | 2009-11-21, 20:42 | Report

Me and my big mouth opened a can of worms on a Saturday night!

But it seems like we do have some consensus on a few things that might help to make it clearer.

Having apparently talked myself into it, I shall head off to bugzilla and file a bug on... bugzilla. At which point I fear it may take offense and eat me. I'll link back to this thread so all the suggestions in here get included.

Thank you to everyone for taking this seriously. I find Bugzilla scary. Especial thanks to Krisse and Andre for all the work.

Edit: there's I've done it and I survived. I'm not sure how useful it was as a bug-file, but as an experience for a new-user, it was very useful. (Especially knowing that Andre will be looking out for it)

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Last edited by RevdKathy; 2009-11-21 at 20:56.

Jaffa | # 37 | 2009-11-21, 21:42 | Report

What's the due date for the SSO task, in your opinion? What happens if it's not met?

The inaccuracies and unusefulness of most "due date" columns are why the sprint process contains start date, progress and MoSCoW prioritisation.

zerojay | # 38 | 2009-11-21, 21:43 | Report

Moving away from Bugzilla to anything else means getting nothing but a bunch of vague bugs from people going "it doesn't work - FIX IT".

That's why Bugzilla asks for all the info that it does... because while the user may not understand the relevance of all the info, you never know when the developer might pick out a bit of info that makes things so much clearer to him.

If there's anything you don't understand, just leave it alone and someone else such as Andre will come along and fix things or ask additional questions to fill in the blanks.

Bugzilla just looks intimidating until you understand a little bit more about how bugs are fixed and documented. I know it's somewhat intimidating at first, but once you've entered a bug or two and you get a feel for it, you'll see it's not anywhere near as bad as you've been saying.

krisse | # 39 | 2009-11-22, 04:04 | Report

You really think that Bugzilla is the only possible way to do this?

There are many viable alternatives to Bugzilla. There are lots of ways of making bug reporting easier without allowing vague reports.

Wizards for example can give people multiple choices that narrow down bugs one step at a time without requiring any technical knowledge, and without allowing totally freeform reporting. Many operating systems use such a technique in their help files.


Makes it so much clearer to the developer, and so much unclearer to the user. The whole design philosophy of Bugzilla is developer-oriented.


There is absolutely nothing on Bugzilla to let people know what they can leave blank and what they have to fill in.


Most ordinary users will not even enter one bug with Bugzilla in its current state. They will assume this system is not intended for consumer use, and in many ways they will be right.

If someone is treating Maemo as an interesting hobby that they want to learn more about, yes, that's true that people can learn to use Bugzilla.

But 95% of people who use gadgets aren't treating it as a hobby, they just want the damn thing to work.

If you want to make it possible for this 95% to report bugs, Bugzilla is not up to the task.

krisse | # 40 | 2009-11-22, 04:06 | Report

Why are we even considering steering consumers to a bug reporting system which includes provisions for SDK users?

Ordinary users should not be going anywhere near anything to do with SDKs.

This is yet another argument in favour of keeping Bugzilla dedicated entirely to developers, and making a totally separate and totally different bug reporting system for consumers.

Like I've said before, consumers want to be in a restaurant while developers want to be in a kitchen. They're two different worlds even though there's a relationship between them.

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Last edited by krisse; 2009-11-22 at 04:08.