Bug#559795: debian-installer: The purpose of choosing a country is unclear

[Florian Zumbiehl <florz@florz.de>]

> > Now I get it ... but I think the interface really goes to some length
> > to obscure that possibility ;-)
> 
> Well, another handicap is that users are used to selecting the country they 
> want based on their locale preference. That's something people will have 
> to "unlearn".
> 
> > After all, it doesn't say anything about which part of that selection
> > can be overridden lateron - you are being told that it's for time zone
> > and locale, not that it's for the time zone, and for the suggestion of a
> > default locale that you can override.
> 
> Well, I've tried to make that as clear as possible in the wording by 
> mentioning time zone first and by adding the hint that you should select 
> the country where you live.

... and the window title reads something with language, the menu item
that gets you there is about language, too. Not very suggestive of time
zone selection, really ...

> If you have concrete suggestions for improvement (that do not make the 
> current descriptions much longer than they currently are), that would be 
> very welcome.

Now, I don't have much of a clue of the internal structure of the
installer, but from the outside, I think a structural change would be
more sensible than just changing the explanation. I think something like
this would be easy to understand (and thus to explain, too):

- first, present a language selection, just as it is now - state
  clearly that this is about language/locale selection only
- then, ask for language variant, if applicable - state
  clearly that this is about language/locale selection only
- then, ask for additional locales to install
- possibly ask for selection of default locale if there is
  more than one locale to be installed now

And then, later in the process, use the language variant as a hint
only for selecting default keyboard layout/time zone/mirror,
but always provide a "your magic guessing powers have failed"
option. In the case of non-variant (non-)locales, optionally use
the keyboard layout as the hint for the remaining stuff.

I think the confusion mostly comes from the mixing of concerns.
There are separate menu items for language selection, keyboard layout
selection, and clock configuration, and any hidden dependencies make
the behavior much more difficult to predict, which is much worse
usability-wise than having to answer some more easy to understand
questions.

Somehow I reckon, though, that there is some technical reason for
things being the way they are that makes my approach impossible ... :-)