sajolida wrote (27 May 2016 16:03:38 GMT) :
> My conclusion is that our user base is not what it should be... :(
ACK
> I guess that these ratios are very different from the market shares of
> these operating systems in general. But I see little reason for them to
> differ as Tails runs independently from the base OS.
I see another bunch of reasons that seems pretty convincing to me:
people who are already using GNU/Linux:
1. are more technical, so more likely to be at ease trying something
new;
2. are already somewhat comfortable with GNU/Linux, so trying Tails
won't be as scary as "trying GNU/Linux for the first time";
3. already have gone through the installation process of a GNU/Linux
distribution, as opposed to using a pre-installed OS shipped with
their computer, so the whole concept of installing an OS is already
rather inside their comfort zone.
Also, note that these numbers don't account for a (possibly large)
part of the Tails users population, i.e. those who get their stick
installed/upgraded by cloning, or by "Install from ISO" done by
someone who already knows how to do it, simply because it's
historically been the only doable way to get it done for them in
practice: in most cases I witness around me, those people won't go
through the assistant at all, they'll just hand out their USB stick to
a slightly more technical person who will do the cloning, and that
more technical person won't go through the assistant either as they
already know how to clone their Tails. And it's exactly the same when
that more technical person does "Install from ISO" from a Debian-based
system. These use cases simply generate zero hit in our web stats, so
let's keep in mind that these stats we have are mostly about
first-time users, isolated ones, and technically autonomous ones;
I don't know how big a part of our user base they are (probably big,
but is it 50%, or 80%, or what? we simply don't know).
This situation might change in the future, but I expect it to take
a long time, the power of past habits is immense. Even though the IA
might now enable the users I have in mind to install/upgrade Tails
themselves, they are barely aware of it; also, for some of them, the
first time they tried it was not translated yet into their native
language, which put them off, and since then they never tried it
again. Besides, they simply already have a way to solve their problem,
so why should they bother trying something new? :)
> Maybe Linux user are more conscious about privacy than Windows user?
> But would we say this about Mac?
I personally don't believe that Mac users are generally more privacy
aware than Windows ones. The Apple hardware+OS island is arguably at
least as bad than the PC/Windows one, in terms of locking down stuff
and making the user powerless in front of a single vendor.
> So for me, seeing this would rather reveals that our
> proposal and adoption and installation processes, are off-pulling for
> Windows and Mac users, maybe by reputation (eg. hardware support for
> Mac, complicated to install and start, etc.).
Yes. We certainly have a lot of room for improvement in this area, but
some of the reasons I've mentioned above will simply always apply, and
we can't do much about that: regardless of how easy our installation
process is, and regardless of how good our hardware support is, for
a Windows/Mac user the whole thing will always be "trying a brand new
kind of OS with its own, specific means of installation and boot".
So, we perhaps need to work on this not only by making the
installation and first-boot process easier and more user-friendly
(which we have focussed on so far), but also at the _previous_ step:
the one when people who heard about Tails and get interested decide to
try it out… or not. IMO working on these psychological blockers is key
to making our user base less technical and Linux-centric.
This can include e.g. a video tour that would demystify the whole
thing and explain it's not *that* hard, having Tails pre-installed on
consumer devices that would allow more people to try it out without
having to _first_convince themselves that they are actually able to do
so, or whatever relevant onboarding website/documentation improvement
(e.g. our "Getting started" page could certainly provide a warmer and
more welcoming feeling).
I don't think this is new thinking at all: IIRC it was the whole point
of the "from the inside out" UX roadmap to first make Tails easier to
install and use, before we started seriously reaching out to more,
less technical users. How I see it, we've completed the biggest part
of the first step, and it'll soon be time to look into the next one.
Disclaimer: I don't know if -project@ is the right place to have this
discussion. Feel free to redirect to -ux@ (keeping me Cc'ed) if you
think it would be more appropriate :)
Cheers,
--
intrigeri
