[tahoe-dev] barriers to using tahoe

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn]

I've been reading this thread closely, and I'll probably write  
another reply or two to messages that have been posted in the last  
few days on this thread. User interface/user experience issues are  
probably the most important issues in the whole of Tahoe-LAFS design.

But, I'm basically waiting to see if these ideas gel into something  
actionable.

I've noticed that discussions about "how to write this code" can  
circle endlessly, but a unit test provides a fixed point for everyone  
to navigate by.

Likewise, discussions of security can sometimes need the fixed point  
of a working exploit to help people understand each other.

What is the equivalent for user experience discussions? Perhaps it is  
the "mock-up". If you have an idea of how a better user experience  
for Tahoe-LAFS should work, could you draw a series of pictures  
showing how your idea would work?

If your idea is purely textual, such as a way to integrate Tahoe-LAFS  
into your unix filesystem (a la FUSE), then your mock-up could be a  
fictional shell transcript showing a user using your ideal Tahoe-LAFS  
interface.

In either case to be useful it needs to be rather detailed. How does  
a user create their first directory? Or if it was created  
automatically on installation, then how do they find it? If it is a  
textual interface, do they run "mount"? If so, what do they see? How  
does the user share some files and directories with other users?

Thank you very much for your ideas about this critical issue.

Regards,

Zooko