Re: Proposal: switch default desktop to xfce
Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> writes:
> On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 7:08 AM, Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> > There are different ways of presenting the choice that make the
> > choice more or less obvious, but it's hard to avoid a default choice
> > in an installer. […]
> >
> > If you need to eliminate the concept of default entirely […]
>
> I'm sure we can find some designers who are capable of creating lists
> that have no first/last destop blend. Even I can think of a couple; a
> circle of desktop blend logos/names around Debian or a 3x3 grid of
> desktop blends.
This brings to the fore the whole point of a default, though: Why force
*every* user of the installer to make that choice, when many of them
find the very question to be a needless imposition which makes the
installer incrementally less helpful?
Every choice the user is presented with is a cognitive burden, and must
be justified. Preferably, that burden should be minimised by having a
default choice, so the user who doesn't value the choice more than the
cognitive burden it creates can delegate the decision to the experts:
those who are in a position to set the default.
People presented with too many choices that they don't know how to
answer will tend to abandon the whole process as too much effort.
Setting defaults is a powerful way to keep more people from abandoning
the process <URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_architecture>.
--
\ “Those who write software only for pay should go hurt some |
`\ other field.” —Erik Naggum, in _gnu.misc.discuss_ |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
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