Your Meerkat Needs You! Help Hunt down geeky app descriptions in the software centre

By , Published July 6, 2010

When installing new applications using the Ubuntu Software Centre how many times have you actually read the software description beforehand? Did it make sense, tell you what you needed to know or was it a blur of disjointed technical jargon with meaningless versioning numbers trailing at the end?  Hell, was it even in the right category?!image[8]
These may sound like minor contrivances to those adept and learned in installing software in Ubuntu but for newcomers and those not versed in the Ubuntu method of installing application the role clear, concise and, perhaps above all else, relevant information plays can not be understated. How is a user expected to know which of two applications is better if one reads like a lexicon of nerd?

Fixing poor descriptions of Software Centre applications is listed as a papercut milestone for Ubuntu 10.10 because, as one tester during Canonicals’ user testing day put it: €œSoftware centre descriptions are geeky.€

The Issue

Jargon. That's the issue here. Technical, nerdy, self-indulgent jargon in application descriptions causes problems for new users. Not only are they already feeling daunted by the unfamiliar computing environment they not have to battle with a bunch of alien terms in application descriptions.

Who said Ubuntu was for Human Beings, huh?

Example

How would you describe Pidgin? I bet my jelly babies that it wouldn't be like this: -

  • graphical multi-protocol instant messaging client for X

Seriously. It's there. In the Software Centre. No lie. And it has been like that for a long time. A somewhat odd choice of words when compared with the flat-out informative blurb on the Pidgin website: -

  • Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once.

Help to find more

At the time of writing a mere 12 such issues have been reported but like fish in the sea there are plenty more out there just waiting to be caught.image
Helping is easy. Just open up the Ubuntu Software Centre and search for your favourite application. Read the description, check the category make sure everything is up-to-par.

It might help , when reading the application description in your head, to imagine your sister or nephew reading it; would they understand it? 

If it's overly technical or badly written then file a papercut bug. You can read about how to do that correctly @ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut#How to report a bug for 100 ‘paper cuts’. Be sure to check the list of bugs currently reported.

Papercuts Hall Of Fame

We love Paper-cut patcher-uppers here on OMG! Ubuntu! – just like the following cool kids have already filed, fixed & sorted out some papercuts. Your name could easily soon be amongst them.

Marcus Carlson , Saïvann Carignan , Scott Howard , Travis Watkins , Chow Loong Jin ,  Jean-Baptiste Lallement , Scott Ritchie , Mackenzie Morgan , Andrew Higginson , Ted M Lin , Torrey Rice , Conn O Griofa , Luke Symes , Andrew Starr-Bochicchio , Iain Churcher , Alexey Fisher , Yves Kurz , Matt Perry, Alex Launi  , Andrew ,Dries Harni , Jonathan Thomas , Iain Lane , Xiegai Shan , Mirco Müller , Alexander Sack , Neil J. Patel , Chris Cheney , Chris Halse Rogers , Cody Russell , Didier Roche , Bryce Harrington , Martin Pitt, Robert Ancell, Jonathan Riddell , Michael Vogt , Sebastien Bacher , Ken VanDine , Marcel Stimberg, Jean-Louis Dupond , Dries Harnie , Luca Ferretti .

Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

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  • http://wakoopa.com/xfact XFACT

    Well, great point, you know how horrible I feel about geek words, (obviously I am a forever newcomer) and some of the description was like Japanese to me, joy those are finally being interpreted to human comprehending language :P

  • dbrenha

    sometimes on translations jargon gets to be not so geeky, in portuguese the pidgin translation goes for something in the lines of “internet messenger for aim, google talk, jabber”… and so on.

    • Ryan1

      same for the german description:
      Something like “Chat with instant messengers. Supporting AIM, Google Talk, Jabber/XMPP, MSN, Yahoo and more…”

      The elaborations are even much better.

      • Naeddyr

        Obviously it seems that Ubuntu needs a competent English translation, then!

  • rAX

    That’s really a good step :)

    I found funny description two days ago of the package “blackbox”, the post reminded me of it, this is the last part of it:

    “… If none of this sounds familiar to you, or you want your computer to
    look like Microsoft Windows or Apple’s OS X, you probably don’t want
    this package.”

    • http://orkutcidio.deliriocoletivo.org Peterson Espaçoporto

      LOL I love those linux ‘cookies’ =D

  • Anonymous

    i don’t consider myself a “geek” (like 50% newcomer even though i’m an 99% ubuntu user for some years) but i can’t see why the “graphical multi-protocol instant messaging client for X” is that bad. ok, ignore the “for x” part if you don’t know what x is. the rest is quite ok, isn’t it?. it could include what protocols are supported , i know, but that’s just something they ignored, not “geek stuff”.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      I think the difference is that whilst the current definition may literally correct it blinds non-geeks (i.e. people who don’t know what Ubuntu is it just came pre-installed on their netbook etc) with words that mean nothing to them. Put simply: it isn’t as helpful a description it could be.

      • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

        Ask your Momma what a Client is…nuff said..

  • V for Vincent

    Great idea. Everyone needs to get off their high horse and accept that this type of wording is better. Yes, most of the current descriptions are fine for the current audience, but we’re looking to grow, not stagnate.

    • Nothing

      I don’t believe that anyone thinks that this kind of wording is better. It just kinda crept in.

  • http://twitter.com/_Vos_ daniel

    “These may sound like minor….plays can not be understated.” is the largest run-on sentence i have read this month! Nonetheless it is a great idea. I will do everything I can to help as it is an exemplary reason for new users to leave Ubuntu after tying it because, after all, if you can’t understand what you are about to install than it is an annoyance, one which I would like to help avoid for others, who are new to Ubuntu and would like an open source alternative to a traditional “for sale” operating system. I just beat you!!!!!!!!!JK love this site and all your posts/news. Keep up the good work!

    • http://twitter.com/Ryu_Kurisu Christiaan Druif

      I don’t wanna bitch here, but I think you are not choosing the right words. Instead of “open source” I think you mean “free” as in “don’t need to pay to download it”.
      Because open source stands for publicly available code. This code can then be changed and what-not by “programmers”. The average Joe doesn’t give a damn darn thing if he can see/use the code. He want’s good software and FREE. He might even expact the same behaviour he was used to in Windows.

      That being said; I too think the desciptions should change, not just because of the average Joe, but for all. I’m a student to become a bachelor of ICT here in Holland and even I don’t always know what all the programs do (before I read a review or something on OMG! for example).

  • http://www.obfuscatepenguin.net/ Marc

    The description for Pidgin is “graphical multi-protocol instant messaging client for X” rather than “Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once.” because it’s taken from the debian package, which is correctly following packaging policy guidelines.
    They state (IIRC) that the short description should be less than 60 characters, but as informative as possible, not include the package name, nor begin with “a” or “the” or end in a full stop. It should complete the sentence:
    provides/is a .
    Following these guidelines results in:
    pidgin is a graphical multi-protocol instant messaging client for X.

    I agree that it’s still geeky, but it does what was asked of it. Descriptions appearing in the Ubuntu Software Centre seem to require their own guidelines. The bigger problem is that these aren’t easily found—I’m assuming that they actually exist, somewhere—and should be linked from the packaging guide (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/Complete), which currently makes no mention of the Software Centre, and cites a broken link for “[m]ore information on how to make a good description”.

  • https://launchpad.net/~owhno osteenbergen

    Just checked programs in the “Provided by Ubuntu” section. I did until Anjuta IDE and I got bored, but at least I did 50 and 17 bug reports :D Definitely needed. So if anyone would like to continue over there, please do.

    It took me 1 hour to do 50 items and with 2323 items available it would take roughly 47 hour to check everything that is listed (excluding the 32057 other techical items).

    Some nerd examples:
    “This package contains akonadi agents written using kdelibs. Any package that uses akonadi should probably pull this in as a dependency. The kres-bridges is also parts of this package.
    This package is part of the kdepim-runtime module”

    And one from Abe’s Amazing Adventure:
    “This package contains the architecture dependent file of the game”

  • you find me

    Decepticons Attack !! Realy !!

  • http://www.ubuntubuzz.com ubuntubuzz

    can’t wait to see next episode of ubuntu

  • http://twitter.com/record81 Cord Brandes

    Hi there, I would be very pleased to help you all with that topic. I am from Germany so I will try to help you with the German descriptions in translating and generating descriptions

    cya
    record81

  • Anonymous

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