Re: [Tails-ux] Terminology for the web assistant: installati…

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Author: BitingBird
Date:  
To: sajolida, Tails user experience & user interface design, tchou
Subject: Re: [Tails-ux] Terminology for the web assistant: installation media
sajolida:
> intrigeri:
>> u wrote (03 Jul 2015 14:59:11 GMT) :
>>> And also, as pointed out to me by somebody else, "a flash memory" or
>>> "another flash memory" seems wrong, as one cannot count one, two or more
>>> memories ;)
>>
>> Actually, it works in some cases, but IMO not when speaking about
>> storage devices that happen to contain _some amount of_ flash memory.
>>
>>> So, I am suggesting either to use:
>>
>>> * flash (memory) device
>>> * removable (flash) device
>>> * flash (memory) drive
>>> * removable (flash) media
>
> Thanks for bringing up this discussion again. Other people already
> mentioned that they didn't like "flash memory" so I'm putting BitingBird
> and tchou in copy to make sure they don't miss this discussion again.
> I'm personally not against spending some more time on this discussion as
> long as we end up with something better. Unfortunately I think there's
> no perfect solution to this problem.
>
> While reading that thread again I realize that I actually misunderstood
> our conclusion [1] which was not to say "memory" but "media" :)
>
> [1]: https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-ux/2015-May/000397.html


As said, "flash media" reminds me of "flash media player". Flash device
sounds clearer for me.
>
> I understand that you're main concerns about our last choice (saying
> "flash memory") are:
>
> A. "Flash memory" correctness in English. This seems to align with what
> SpencerOne said on [2]. As you pointed out "flash drive" or "flash
> media" would be more correct.
>
> [2]: https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-ux/2015-April/000376.html
>
> B. It might be hard to understand for most of our users. Actually, we
> had our new full synopsis for Windows USB installation [3] reviewed by
> four external people (some native English speakers and some others not)
> and none of them pointed this out as an issue. Probably because the
> terminology is introduced with an explanation -- "flash memory (USB
> stick or SD card)". So let's keep in mind that we might see a bigger
> problem that there actually is.
>
> [3]: https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/bootstrapping/assistant/windows
>
>> I've re-read most of this thread (all of the part I had kept locally,
>> possibly I missed bits that I had deleted already), took a step back,
>> took the context into account (we're having a Tails Installer sprint
>> currently), and now I'm tempted to suggest treating SD cards as
>> a corner case
>
> I would be fine with that but that's a deeper choice than a pure debate
> on terminology so I wasn't feeling empowered with doing that as a writer.
>
> In that case, I would make it clear in the installation instructions
> only that people can use SD cards instead of USB sticks. I would refrain
> myself from mentioning it in many more place as otherwise it become
> cumbersome (as we do currently) or otherwise might create confusion on
> whether SD cards can always replace USB sticks or only the times we
> mention it explicitly as an alternative. This problem doesn't occur if
> we find a generic name for both USB sticks and SD cards as proposed
> until now.
>
>> first, because the generalization to both cover SD
>> cards and USB sticks is what makes the problem at hand hard to
>> solve -- we're trying to find terminology that both lets 99.xx% of our
>> users think of a USB flash drive, *and* that lets 0.xx% of our users
>> understand that other kinds of removable flash storage media may work
>> too; second, because booting Tails off a SD card rarely works, and
>> thus:
>>
>>  * letting users believe that it works just as well on SD cards as on
>>    USB flash drives is misleading (and can result in discouraging
>>    failures);

>
> I thought we fixed SDIO a while ago and I see no known issues about SD
> card on our website (neither have I experienced any myself). Do you have
> practical examples of such problems? Why aren't they mentioned as known
> issues?


I've seen some computers boot from USB and not SD cards, but I had no
exact model references. One was a Mac, I don't remember the others
>
>>  * AFAIK is only/mostly used by power-users who'll know that their
>>    computer can boot off a SD card, and then these people are likely
>>    used to convert "USB flash drive" to "SD card" on-the-fly.

>
> This is something I don't know. I tried to do some stats on WhisperBack
> reports to know whether they were coming from USB sticks or SD card but
> failed.
>
> From a merely technical point of view, I fail to see why SD cards would
> be more "technical" or more for more "power users" that USB sticks. You
> use same in the exact same way, most modern computers have SD card
> slots, they are smaller in size, you can have more deterministic or
> better read/write speeds, etc.
>
> Maybe we see less people around us using SD cards because they are more
> used to USB sticks to carry their files around but they didn't realize
> that there are advantages to SD cards in the context of Tails. That
> could actually be our job to make them realize this and here finding a
> generic term might help.
>
>> So, perhaps just going for "USB stick" or "USB flash drive" would work
>> for everyone, and make things simpler to understand for 99.xx% of
>> our users.
>>
>> The canonical page [1] about USB sticks on Wikipedia is "USB flash
>> drive"... and the list of redirects to it [2] is impressive, but
>> I would personally stick to "USB flash drive".
>>
>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive
>> [2] http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=USB_flash_drive
>>
>>> This question is strongly related to
>>> https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/8866
>>
>> ... and is therefore currently blocking a great deal of our work on
>> Tails Installer.
>
> So does it on our doc rewriting for the Installation Assistant.
>
> Our Windows USB synopsis can also be used as a good place to see this
> terminology issues in action and try out different solutions.
>