Comment 29 for bug 15495

The aim of the paper cuts project is to improve the usability of the Ubuntu desktop. What this debate reflects is that there are many ways to solve this problem; what the design team aims to do is resolve these discussions by conducting research with a broader audience.

In order to use something a person does not need to have an accurate picture of how it works, they need to be able to predict the effect a particular action will have. Mental models don't need to be correct to be useful.

I recommend Compress because all the participants could predict what that might do and why they might use it and terms like Archive and Zip were less clear to people. To quote one participant: "I know what a zip is on my jacket?"

Based on research, the solution from the design team is:
* In the context menu rename "Create Archive" to "Compress..."
* The subsequent dialog box should be re-titled to read: "Create compressed file"
* The input box on the dialog box should be re-labelled from 'Archive' to 'Filename'

What I would really like to do is heal 100 paper cuts for Karmic - let's try this now and, if usability testing shows this is not the optimum solution we can improve it in Karmic +1.