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:
2006-07-30
Spot on!
Somebody (I believe it was Linus) made the point that an application that contains only the features that are used by a majority would have nearly no features at all.
The point is that different groups of users use different subsets of the features. Maybe one needs wordcount, the other needs syntax highlighting and a third person absolutely depends on an integrated file manager if we take Kate as an example.
So the question is not whether or not to have all these features but how to present them to the user. In this regard I believe Kate is an interesting example because the word count feature is (last time I checked) not listed in a menu but you are expected to use the command "wc" in the integrated terminal.
This might seem rather odd but with any full blown application you have so many options that you need to check the documentation anyway - unless you want to hunt the feature down in menus that are 4 levels deep, which often takes more time, or guess what button of the 1000 buttons that reside in the menubar and unfortunately all look the same does the thing you want. Looking at you two, Kile and OOffice!