Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 6th Oct 2007 22:59 UTC, submitted by Christoph Plamper
"A lot of bandwidth has been wasted arguing over the lack of usability in open-source software/free software. Some people say that bad usability is endemic to the entire OSS world, while others say that OSS usability is great but that the real problem is the closed-minded users who expect every program to clone Microsoft. Some people contend that UI problems are temporary growing pains, while others say that the OSS development model systematically produces bad UI. In an effort to understand usability in the OSS world, I've researched the stories behind my favorite - and least favorite - OSS programs. I've found a fascinating variety of personalities, design philosophies, and project organizations. Although I've only scratched the surface, there are already themes that come up again and again."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
> It's a geek environment.
you say that like it's at odds with being any other kind of environment. millions of non-geek users are evidence of it being otherwise.
> The problem comes from having too many options,
> particularly ones that are almost never, if ever,
> used.
that i agree with. the question is how to delineate between these categories of options. that is something i don't think many people have managed to do very well, and i've read quite a bit on the topic.
i see a lot of "software should be more sane!" mantra-ing without a lot of real world suggestions. in the article, the suggested solution in this regard is sane defaults. which, interestingly, is usually rather orthogonal to the flexibility of the software itself. however, what 'sane defaults' are is never actually elucidated.
so once again we get (vague, which is understandable given the attention span of a blog entry,) descriptions of problems with even more vague descriptions of solutions that are really just reiterations of ideas that have been hashed and rehashed with very little conclusion.
there have been a few people who have gone to great length to talk about these solutions, the person who coined the term "humane computing" being one of them, which has resulted in a great contribution to the field .... but here we are reading this blog entry instead =) oh well ...