Hi Guys,
Some serious questions...
1. When do we want to start marketing this to the mass population?
2. When do we want to make this user friendly so we have a chance of it being used by the mass population?
Is it now? Is it 2016? 2017?
I hoped it would be with the release of Bitshares 2.0 but I have to say I think its not even close and I'll go through why in this post.
Now I'm a fairly technical person, computer literate and have been using computers for about 25 years, but not as technical as many on here I'm sure.
Just going through some basic stuff on an upgrade has me confused, so I started to look at it from the point of view of MOST people I come in contact with who are quite clueless when it comes to computers in general. I'm not completely sure who the community on here is made up of, but I would hazard a guess its predominantly male, aged 20 - 45 with good working knowledge of computers and a passion for technology.
That is not the general population! That is not the 90% of "consumers" who we want to take to this technology like they do to smartphones.
So here's my experience this afternoon with the empathy of perhaps a novice computer user, just so you can appreciate where I am coming from.
I wanted to upgrade my Bitshares 2.0 software to the latest release to get rid of the display bug recently mentioned, I like to keep my software updated to the latest version in any case. First I opened my current Bitshares 2.0 software to check what version I was using, usually this found under file or help "About Application"... it was there but threw a JavaScript error so I thought OK I'll just download the latest version.
I go over to the Bitshares.org website as I know this site is where to download the software (imagine I was given a card at an expo, or referred to the site in an email).
BitShares 2.0 is an industrial-grade financial smart contract platform. Sounds great!
I read some info under the Technology section... awesome I'm ready to download my software and start using Bitshares!
I click on "Download Now" because I want to install it on my computer.
Github? What's that? Oh OK Latest Release... BitShares 2.0.151101
All full nodes will need to upgrade to this release by Wed Nov 4 16:00:00 UTC 2015.
Huh? What's a full node? Oh wait its now November 7... sooo what does that mean, I can't get the software? hmmmm
Oh here we go, downloads...
BitShares-2.15.306-x64-cli-tools.exe
BitShares-light_2.0.151105.dmg
BitShares-light_2.0.151105.exe
bitshares-light_2.0.151105_amd64.deb
Source code (zip)
Source code (tar.gz)
Hmmm which one do I choose? What's a DMG? whats a DEB?
This actually did confuse me guys as I couldn't remember if I downloaded the light version or what.
So I downloaded that again, installed and now all I get is FILE/QUIT EDIT/... VIEW/RELOAD
It says connected but there is no main menu with explore, search etc like in the previous.
If I'm confused and don't know how to get back to where I was before, believe me there's a slim chance of getting a basic computer user to get this up and running. That might sound arrogant or offensive but it is not intended to be... it is said with the best of intentions.
There is great work being done here, but if the UX is not friendly and basically "plug and play" its a problem.
I am putting this out there because I do want this to work, I am invested in it (probably more emotionally than financially at this point) and I cannot help wondering if all the people working on this fulltime, and part time, at this stage cannot see the woods for the trees?
Maybe a good starting point would be for everyone involved to ask a friend/family member who is not to go through the UX and give some feedback?