OSNews

I found it interesting how the author's perceptions of the choices being offered him changed from negative to positive. He was intimidated by the choice of distribution, or the choice of filesystem to use, but then he was very pleased at having a choice of word processors available. I think the principle we see here is that we like to have choices when we feel we have the information and experience to choose wisely, but we do not want to have to make choices when we don't have any information on which to base our choice.

On the other hand, as our base of knowledge grows, the areas in which we feel able to make choices grow, and we are frustrated when we are not allowed to apply our newfound knowledge. Many of us who run Linux were attracted by the greater choice we were offered.

I think the key here is to work on making interfaces that are layered. The trick (and I'm not sure what might be the right approach) would be to provide the novice user with sensible defaults in such a way that they do not feel like they are being forced to make a choice, but giving the experienced user a hint that more configurability is available. It clearly does not work to bombard the novice user with lots of questions, even if the defaults are sensible ones, as it leaves them feeling bewildered and intimidated. Yet it is also important that the Linux family of operating systems retain their central virtue of operator choice and control, or nothing substantial will have been gained by the user community.

P.S. Writing well is skill like any other. Just because the author is not the most skilled of writers doesn't mean that his observations are not meaningful.