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User Feedback and Open Source Development
Posted by
emmett
on Wed Mar 08, 2000 03:36 PM
from the read-this dept.
from the read-this dept.
Earl Shannon writes, "With the new release of Sendmail I was looking over Sendmail.net and
came across this essay called It's the User, Stupid. Author Mike Kuniavsky states a very important question if Linux wants to make inroads on the desktop as an open source solution. How can the open source development model obtain the necessary user feedback to development interfaces that the user will intuitively able to use?"
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User Feedback and Open Source Development
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Something old, something new... (Score:3)
Second, we all know that UI programming can be a dreary task. This is where graphical UI designers (like Glade for Gnome or Constructor on MacOS) come into play. Using these tools the UI design is far less boring (or time-consuming for that matter). It's even almost fun. Once we have programmers not dreading UI programming, they'll put more effort into it.
Third, UI guidelines for apps. It would do a lot of developers good to study the Mac, BeOS, and NeXT guidelines. These people spent a lot of money coming up with their UI's, and each has some very good points. From these, a coherent set of Linux UI guidelines could be created. There will always be anti-usability zealots who insist "no one's gonna tell me how to design my program!" but the fact remains, UI designs are there for a reason.
Finally, the metaphor. The more I think about it, the more I think the desktop metaphor needs to go. It's not appropriate on Unix-esque filesystems, because of the almost maddening complexity. It's not even appropriate on Windoze. MacOS only gets away with it anymore because so few people go near the System Folder. Unix also has the additional problem that filesystems are a lot more "fixed" in nature than MacOS; it's a lot easier to break something just by moving it. So basically, what we need is a new metaphor, one which is more appropriate given the filesystem. I don't know what a good one would be, though I've heard some intriguing stuff about using a tree before. I'm not sure I like it, but it's an idea, and those are what we need.
One last thing. People talk about just "helping people to get over the learning curve." They talk about a learning curve being a "one-time event." The fact is, programmers have a responsibility to the users to make that learning curve as small as possible. And learning curves are not one-time events, not if every UI you come across is different. That's why there are UI guidelines; if most programs look and feel pretty similar (given their purposes), then a very large chunk of the learning curve becomes a one-time event. Think about it this way: because of the Mac UI guidelines, I can pick up the fundamentals of almost any Mac program immediately, without ever so much as glancing at a manual (at the absolute least I'll be able to quit the program without looking at a manpage, which is more than I can say for vi or emacs). In about ten minutes, I'll probably have the basics down. And if I want to learn more about the program, I still can; people have this idea that the Mac UI is somehow limiting because of its guidelines. But the guidelines aren't what makes it limiting. It's the people who make the software.
Re:Intuitive Means Windows (Score:3)
That is only true for existing Windows users. Granted, there's a lot of those. But there's also a lot of people who have not used a computer at all, or have been exposed to other interfaces in addition to Windows. For those people, a Win9x-like UI (especially the start button) is going to be very strange. IMHO, the older Win3/Mac/OS2/Amiga/ST/etc.. interface where you click on icons, is a lot easier to grasp than that hidden menu where you have to do the "start" thing, and then make a menu selection, before you can see what programs are available.
If you think the Windows UI is good for novices, I suspect the "novices" you interviewed were actually experienced Windows users.
---
Old News, already posted (Score:3)
--
Intuitive != Windows (Score:3)
This problem is endemic to the software industry. No one (or very few) are willing to spend the time and effort it takes to design a proper interface.
It's hard. I suck at it. Better to have an actual interface designer specialist design the interface, have the programmers write the back end, then stitch the two together.
What intuitive is (Score:3)
I'll give you a working definition of intuitive: A feature is intuitive if on the first try it behaves as the user expects it to behave. See? Nothing about genes, nothing about instincts, nothing about learning.
Dragging a sheet-of-paper icon to a waste basket to delete a document is intuitive for me and probably for 90% of the Western world. We know what is a sheet of paper and what is a waste basket. It doesn't matter if we learned this: we have this knowledge by the time we touch the computer. However, say, for our friendly tribesman Mumbo from New Guinea the same action would not be intuitive at all because it's likely he's never seen a wastebasket in his life and doesn't really know what it means.
In other words, intuition is in the eye of the beholder. An interface is intuitive if I can apply my already-acquired, previously-learned knowledge to the new domain.
And, by the way, user interface design is a big and very complicated field. Most Slashdot readers are no more qualified to comment on it than to judge the performance of a surgeon by watching an operation. Of course that never stopped anyone, me included...
Kaa
Re:Intuitive Means Windows (Score:3)
You mean like dragging a floppy disk to the trashcan to eject it?
A low cost solution to the user feedback problem. (Score:3)
Ugh. I think I speak for all of us. ;-)
As to the question of "how do we make the GUI more intuitive?": we just need to extend the Open Source model. "All bugs are shallow", right? Think of a user as being one of those "solitary" developers, and set up a way for them to feedback into the system. Perhaps Linus can require that all GUI code come with a mechanism -- say an HTML page that includes a mail form -- to give feedback to the developers of that GUI. Or if the developers are loath to embed their email address, perhaps a forwarding box could be set up somewhere *expressly* for the purpose of receiving and routing feedback. The mail form that comes with the GUI could come with a Subject line already set up (or with some hidden info that encodes what the subject is), so that once the message arrives at the forwarding box, it could easily be sent on to the proper people. Thus the feedback loop is closed and it's a win-win situation for both developers and users.
User Interface Research (Score:3)
A good, intuitive user interface is not only totally relative, it also depends on the past experiences of the user in general. I, for example, find a command line interface intuitive, but I've been using Unix for almost 10 years. My parents, who have been using PC's for a few years now, find the Windows95 model (start menu, folder icons for directories, etc) intuitive. Some former co-workers used Macs exclusively for a dozen years--guess what they liked best?
But everyone knows this already. This is not news. But does matter.
We can try to find the common themes here -- if there are, in fact, any common themes to be found when you compare bash to the Finder -- but that will probably not be very fruitful.
We need a huge focus group to discuss user interfaces. We need to get the opinions of people who live in different countries and who speak different languages. We need to get the opinions of people with backgrounds in multiple OSes. So why doesn't someone put together an open source "Research" project that attempts to do precisely this? A site like slashdot would be ideal -- it encourages interaction, posting your own comments and feedback is easy and convenient, and it is widely read.
How does this strike people? Is this a viable things to do? I know this is one of those areas, like documentation, where many open source developers and users are traditionally lax. This is unfortunate -- it is one of the more important aspects of any program, open or closed source.
darren
Cthulhu for President! [cthulhu.org]
Easy Question (Score:3)
The problem with this in the Linux realm is that when a grandma sits down and comes back the next day (you can NOT help them in any way shape or form if you're trying to determine how intuitive it is, else it becomes a test of how good they are at listening to you) and tells you she absolutely hates everything about Linux, the testers tend to slay the grandmother in cold blood for speaking out against the holy relic Linux.
This is not a troll, it is a call to reality. if you wish to continue to improve something you need to know when it is time to destroy what you have and start over. Yes, you love your window manager, but to improve it sometimes you have to destroy it and ignore everything you liked about it and just go down a new path. The guy that answered questions on here a week or so ago, the user interface expert, he had some really great ideas. And he hated Linux. So why not take his ideas, destroy everything of Linux that contradicts it, and see if maybe what comes out on the other end is better overall?
Thinking about his ideas, I think it really is a complete tear-down and re-build sort of project. Not even the filesystem can be spared. Journaling? Who gives a flip, in his new concept of using computers (I hate the word paradigm) journaling is stupid. So scrap it. Start over. Quit referring to file by filenames and extensions and a bitfield of permissions. Don't look at those things in a new way, get rid of the old way! Store files based on arbitrary category names, you have a bunch of song files, well, call them song files then. You boot up and you want to look for that song file you have that was made sometime in the 60s by the guy whose name started with B? The machine should not provide this kind of functionality in an application, this should *BE* the system. And no, you can't search by regular expressions, give it up. What about progams and such? Container categories (like song is a category) would cover this, holding the executable stuff. Well, what if someone on the Internet calls their files "music" files instead of "song" files? Easy, when you go to download one of em, it tells you the new file has a "music" flag on it. You can either add "music" as a recognizable trait for files in your system, or create a translation system for your system that will always read "music" as "song". Community standards will emerge, but if they don't it doesn't matter, maps will take care of it. No more systems programming. Everything will be going through this very high level system. You don't open a file, you try to open a class of files or a property within the same container as the program.
Hell, throw in some of Ted Nielsen's ideas which boil down to hyperlinking between portions of a document. Defining document portions shouldn't be that tough and it makes it all possible (I haven't read too deeply into his stuff, but from what I've read this seems as if it would have solved his problems).
For once in your life, I beg of you Open Source world, innovate! Let go of the archaic, obscure Unix past that sucked donkey balls for UI and do something new. You will never (and I mean never) compete for the home desktop unless you do so. If you eventually do, it will only be because you finally became as bloated as Windows. Everyone bitches because Windows ran on top of DOS... hello? X runs on top of Linux, wake up!
Esperandi
Seriously and honestly, this is not a troll, and Open Source developers need to read it.
Intuitive Means Windows (Score:4)
No, what "intutive" really means is "like Windows." Having worked with all 3 major platforms for quite some time now, I've found that what most people really want is a Start button and Explorer as their OS. Disgusting, no?
Obviously, you and I aren't most people. That's why we're reading Slashdot. But trying to get your grandmother to use anything but Windows, which she's used twice, is going to scare her.
So that's how we do it, that's how we make an intuitive GUI. Imitate Windows.
Gosh, that's an awful thing to have to say.
Been there, done that. (Score:4)
In a nutshell, the point of the debate was: Who is Linux targetted at? The developers of Linux are the users of Linux - the users of Linux become the developers of Linux. This is the way it has been before the IPO of AllThingsLinux.com
I have to ask, has the intention of Linux changed? Is it no longer software of the people, by the people and for the people? Has it become a supplier-consumer relationship?
If it's still the former, then the developers are the users and vice versa, and it's a stupid argument. If the latter is true, and the developers are the Morlocks to the users Eloi, then what Linux is all about is dead.
Linux WAS about solving real problems. Performance, technical issues, doing things 'right' without market pressure. If the focus must shift to 'end-users', and to providing 'unwashed masses' with a comfortable experience, then that goes contrary to the spirit of Linux - at least as I see it.
Let them eat cake, and run Windows and MacOS, I say! If they want to use Linux, they'll have to learn regular expressions.
In fact, out of the box is exactly where this end-user convenience should come from. Let the people making money on Linux distros add that value. They're the ones who depend on a growing user base. "Hey you, in the red hat! Are you listening?"
The core community is it's own user base and doesn't seem to care too much about auto-configuration wizards and user-friendly dumbification. If they did, those features would be there by now. See how it works?
Paradox of the Active User (Score:4)
"The "paradox of the active user" is a concept introduced by John M. Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson (then at IBM, now at Virginia Tech) to explain a common observation in several user studies done at the IBM User Interface Institute in the early 1980s (later confirmed by many other studies, including my own): Users never read manuals but start using the software immediately. They are motivated to get started and to get their immediate task done: they don't care about the system as such and don't want to spend time up front on getting established, set up, or going through learning packages.
The "paradox of the active user" [vt.edu] [PDF,66k] is a paradox because users would save time in the long term by taking some initial time to optimize the system and learn more about it. But that's not how people behave in the real world, so we cannot allow engineers to build products for an idealized rational user when real humans are irrational: we must design for the way users actually behave."
Source: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ activeuserparadox.html [useit.com]
The paper is old, but still very relevant. It was written before Gooey [apple.com] Tarbabies [microsoft.com] achieved World Domination. I was really surprised to discover that many of my current user interface issues have actually been thoroughly documented and processes for (potentially) surmounting them outlined.
Why is it that since we've known about this for so long, so little apparent progress has been made?
My short 2bit answer is the evil upgrade treadmill - everybody is so busy preparing for and researching the Next Big Thing, they don't have time to refine and polish the tools already under our noses.
You can't make it "intuitive" if it isn't. (Score:4)
Frankly, a lot of the "desktop" market is people who would not be able to administer sendmail if it understood English, because they don't know *what they want it to do*. They just sort of want, you know, the thing where the other thing isn't done unless it's supposed'ta.
This can't be resolved by making interfaces intuitive, any more than we can make graduate-level math accessible to children by using "intuitive" words and pictures to describe it.
Eventually, we have to accept that part of what we want to do is educate the users a bit more, so they can figure out what they want to do; at this point, the interface can be designed for efficiency.
Expert-friendly is the way to go.
Completely missing the point... (Score:4)
To provide something new, we need to have a more direct link to what the users of a particular application want. This is something that the commercial houses can and do spend a lot of money on (Aqua, anyone) but in the OSS realm, so much effort is spent in just making the thing run, or better yet, play nice with others (not that there's anything wrong with that), that any UI improvements are an afterthough at best.
We are in a position to take the UI paradigm in any direction we want, but this opportunity is raerely being seized.
At least, that's what I got out of it. Anyone else?
Re:You can't make it "intuitive" if it isn't. (Score:4)
This is the mentality that allows many technical people to grin vaguely when Sun talks about replacing our desktop powerhouses with brainless terminals that place the power of public speech back in the hands of a rich few. It's also an understandable reaction of people fed up with trying to make their passions and motivations clear to lay people, the majority of whom are 5 or 10 years behind the people here. But ultimately your viewpoint is short sighted, because, in the very tradition of open source itself, you can never tell who will have the next brillian idea. There is no guarantee that it will be a techie, and frankly in certain fields of human endeavor such as painting and literature, it's a good bet that it won't be.
Humanity is on the verge of an explosion of creative thought and expression. We are the only people in the world who can make it happen. Please, I know you are an intelligent individual: don't turn your back on what is probably the greatest service your could render humanity in your lifetime: bringing the power of computers to average people.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Re:The author isn't grokking Open Source (Score:4)
I've seen this a lot around here, mistaking what is easy for the average technical /. reader for the average user. Linux is very well designed for its current user base. Its various UIs are far better than Windows for its current user base.
But what people really need to have hammered into them is that this is not at all the same as being well designed for the average person. For me, you and most other Linux users, being able to just edit the config file with vi instead of wading through a bunch of menus is a dream come true. For the average person, this is hell.
There is no one perfect UI. There are UIs that are good for techies and UIs that are good for nontechies. Don't expect them to be at all the same.
The "Open Source" model is probably the supreme way of getting feedback from the average technical user. This does not mean that it is at all good at getting feedback from the average nontechnical user.
Re:Common misconception(s) (Score:4)
Firstly, "intuitive" is a slippery word. There's "intuitive for power users", "intuitive for somewhat experienced users", and "intuitive for newbies". Some would say the last category is the empty set.
Metaphors are the key. Read John Lawler's 1987 lecture "Metaphors we compute by" [virtualschool.edu] for a quick intro on metaphor and metaphors in computing. The situation has unfortunately changed very little in the last 13 years. George Lakoff's book "Philosophy in the Flesh" [amazon.com] shows how metaphors actually are the basic working units of the mind, and that all basic metaphors are based on sensory-motor concepts - in fact, sensory-motor neurons very probably do double duty as metaphor processors.
So, as long as one bases GUI metaphors on basic sensory-motor stuff - things like "time is space-like" (progress bars), "nearer means on top" (overlapping windows), and so forth - you have some chance of being more newbie-intuitive. I've used a prototype ancient GUI where scrollbars worked the other way around; the thumb moved down to scroll up for some reason the designer considered compelling, and it was pure hell to use. Needless to say it didn't survive.
Now, something I've noticed in most (thankfully not all) replies here is a restricted understanding of what a GUI should do. Yes, having icons represent files is useful; installing by running a single program and marking off some options is useful; using menus is often useful. But that's only a small part.
I've released an application for the Mac OS recently. As long as one uses the standard system calls, one gets the expected GUI functionality for basic items - that is, menus work like a Mac user thinks they should, windows drag, roll up, close and whatever. But I spent very little time on that - thanks to a neat C++ framework called PowerPlant - and spent much time making sure other things worked as Mac users are used to.
For instance, placement of the exact hot spot in cursors is important. Shift-click selection of long sections of text is important. Exact timing and graphical progression of drag-and-drop is important. Wording, defaults and back-out options in dialog boxes, sound cues, selection behavior - the list is very long. And the extra time spent on subtleties was rewarded by a five-star review where the reviewer said "I love using this program, but it's often hard to say why unless I watch very closely".
When I'm using CAD software I'm often forced to use Windows NT, and frankly, it's terrible. People argument there are Microsoft UI guidelines, but it seems most people either don't know them or think they're unimportant. For instance, in the PCB layout program I'm using right now, if you select a library component to place on the layout, you select the component from a list - OK, the cursor changes to a translucent image of the component - also OK, but if you want to click on the scroll bar to place the component somewhere else, the component is placed _under_ the scroll bar with no visual indication that the scroll bars are inactive! If you click on a tool palette the component is placed under the palette! If people don't think this sort of flagrant misbehavior is important, are they likely to worry about more subtle things? No way...
So, what the original article says about "skins" being just skin deep is very accurate. Most Linux programmers seem naturally disdainful of graphic interfaces and therefore are slapdash in implementing one. And reaching consensus among a large group about any particular GUI feature is nearly impossible. This is definitely a field where the "absolute dictator" method is the only one which may work - granted it may also fail spectacularly.
That was never the point of open source (Score:4)
Is there a difference? You bet!
Windows 98 has to be written to the lowest common denomonator of user. Limit configurability and leave that to the programmers. It made it easy for anyone to walk up and use.
OSS (take GNOME, which I'm using now) is highly configrable. My bottom panel is probably guaranteed to not look like anyone else's, and if someone else walked up and used my machine, they'd be lost trying to figure it all out. Heck, people get messed up enough since I have "focus follows mouse" and "auto-raise" on.
Does this make OSS harder to use? There's a learning curve to figure out the interface, but not a whole lot. The concepts between Windows 98 and GNOME are similar, which were mostly developed 20 years ago.
Take another fun OSS example - Emacs. There's a steep learning curve, but those that get past it swear by it and use nothing else. It's probably a dismal failure when looked at in a general usability standpoint, but for each person that customized Emacs to work the way they do, it's a success.
Re:Intuitive != Windows (Score:4)
So intuitive, in fact, that that should read "you and me ."
Chinese is a wonderful language; the grammar is amazingly simple and easy to master. There are exactly three pronouns (four if you're reading instead of speaking) and there is no concept of tense at all. I studied it for three years in high school, and although I've forgotten most of the words, I can still remember most of the grammatical rules.
OK, so what does this have to do with designing UI's? The answer is that, IMO, UI's need to be more like Chinese. They need to be simple and have easy, unalterable rules that exist in ALL situations. Apple was very good at this. Microsoft never was. X interfaces are absolutely awful. Apps written in different toolkits, or in raw X all look different, there is no standardization of interface items, control keys, etc. The Apple Human Interface Guidelines (sorry, no URL handy) were revolutionary not only because they described how something should look (only one widget API) but also how it should feel. i.e., you can expect this widget to ALWAYS behave the same way. This is what makes MacOS intuitive, IMO, and what makes learning MacOS apps so easy. (except for Microsoft MacOS apps, since they've tried, and failed miserably, to simply put their abominable UI on the Mac desktop.)
So now that I'm done rambling, I'm not saying we should immitate MacOS - I'm saying that in order to be intuitive, there needs to be standards. The problem, of course, is that users of Open Source projects generally like to have choices. If I want to write a graphical app with Qt instead of gtk, I should be able to. If I want to use a set of nonsensical, inconsistent grammatical constructs like English instead of Chinese, I should be able to. The answer here, IMO, is that Unix OS's are not for the casual user. It was never intended that way, and I think we're kidding ourselves if we think we can make it useable for regular people.
Just my $0.04.
Haiku? God bless you! (Score:4)
Command line power
yet some prefer point-and-click
What's intuitive?
Is it just me .. (Score:5)
Intuitive != Learned (Score:5)
What has happened is that Windows has become part of peoples' learned expectations.
Much as with English, people have learned about its warts and aspects of non-intuitiveness, and have figured out how to work around them.
If something is truly intuitive, this means that there is no learning process required. The thing in question simply works the way people expect.
UNIX has the merit that it is a simple enough computer system that some people can get a sufficiently accurate model of its operation so that it becomes possible to predict what it will do.
In contrast, as soon as you strip the veneer of "learned things about its behaviour" off of Windows, it's a richly complex system whose behaviour is much more difficult to predict. (The lack of source code or other disclosures don't help either...)
The above approach to "intuiting" about Windows and UNIX take a rather different tack than the usual, assuming that the individual will actually try to deeply understand the system. It replaces the "black box" with one that is expected to be understood.
Rather unlike the usual model of trying to know nothing about what is going on behind the curtain...
Howto make better interfaces (Score:5)
People growl at the thought of having to edit a text file to make an adjustment or configuration. Geeks say "Awesome - text file" and whine to people to just learn how to do it.
Teching the masses is not the point and will never be the point. The masses will not learn and any software that is predicated on a painful interface will be opverthrown by software that is pretty and easy to use.
It's not what any of us wants to hear, that free software utterly fails to companies like Microsoft that spends millions of dollars on research with people who are not geeks, who are not programmers, who are not even proficient with computers.
Money is not the point. research, forethought, and feedback is the point. There is reason that Apple and Microsft have fixed UI models. They recognized that the biggest weakness of most programmers is intuitive UI design.
Programmers and geeks as a whole are extremely intuitive people, and that intuition allows us to make tremendous leaps of the non-obvious. Most users are not capable of these tremendous leaps and fail to understand. These users are not stupid or even lacking in intuition. One component of intuition is past experience, and if they have not spent a long time around computers then they do not have the necessary reference material.
There are UI guides out there, and there have been some efforts by the GUI people to get coders to follow them, but we all know that they are herding cats because we won't follow anything that somebody else is going to impose. <sarcasm> I don't need those frigging kernel patches that king linus and prince alan keep trying to shove down my throat.
To get back on subject. If we really want to take over the universe (duh) we are going to have to figure out how to make software that is easy to use, friendly, and intuitive to -non-computer users. There is no compromise.
Thank you Redhat, Corel, and all of other distributors that have gone to great lengths to make is easier to install Linux. I mean there are tools around now so that I don't have to manually program my monitors frequencies into XF86config!
enjoy,
chris
It's a stupid title, stupid (Score:5)
Am I the only one tired by titles of 'It's [whatever], stupid'? This always sounds to me like a somewhat veiled attempt from the author at placing themselves above the reader from the get-go, by claiming they have such a clever bit of information that the reader should feel 'stupid' for not knowing it.
More on topic, I have to say there probably isn't such a thing as an intuitive control. If you think, for instance, that a mouse is an intuitive device, you should see 80 year-olds who never touched a computer before try to figure them out.
Rather than considering so-called 'intuitive' controls, the goal should be to develop methods which are built upon existing and well-known ones. Ultimately, nothing is intuitive in controlling a computer (unless we developped Herbert's genetic memory in the last 50 years), but rather part of a slow learning process.
So don't shoot for intuitive; shoot for ease of learning. Mounting and umounting a drive, for instance, isn't intuitive to a Windows user. But it's easy to learn, and once you catch the principle, it's acquired.
Is that more on topic?
Re:Intuitive Means Windows (Score:5)
> Windows."
In my experiance I have to disagree. The real
topic here is "Learning curve". There is no
such thing as "intuitive".
I have seen complete newbies sat down in front
of "Windows" and be completely lost. They had no
idea what the hell was going on. Its not that
windows is "Intuitive" it just has a shallow
learning curve.
In truth...Unix can have a fairly shallow learning
curve for the non-admin. If your job is not admin
of a system, you can be sat in front of a terminal
and shown how to do the few things you may need
to do (reading/sending mail etc) and learn in
a few mins to an hour or two.
There are two problems I see.
1. Windows exposure
Just as they say "LEarning a second language is
harder than the first one". Just as a newbie
leaning french will try to drawn on english to
incorrectly fill in the gaps in his mind, a
new linux user sits down and expects to be treated
to Windows. It is not the same...it is wrong to
expect it to act and respond the same.
2. Admin ability
To install linux and get it up to a state where
it can be most effective, and work well, you need
to be an admin. You need skills that take a good
6 months of real use to even begin to get good
at.
A new user is not a qualified admin. I know I
only got where I am today by shooting myself in
the foot a few times (first under windows, then
under linux).
What is really needed are tools that lower the
learning curve. Things that are easy to learn...
easy for a newbie to get setup in short time...and
do not hide their internals such that they can't
advance beyond the high level tools.
This has been the major falling of windows, and
for me, redhat. The gui tools are either the ONLY
way, with all the limitations built in like solid
brick walls (windows), or hide the internals and
eventually stunt advancement (redhat - albeit this
is from a few years ago..it may not be a fair
assessment today).
As for innovation (from the article). I have seen
even experianced users sitting dumfounded in
front of some of these "innovated" user interfaces
So what if we "copy". Ya see an idea that works..
ya use it. Ya see ideas that don't work...ya
don't use them. I am all in favor of assmililation
of good ideas.
I don't know about most people...but I like a
good stable system that works. I have that in
linux. Am I interested in making linux "Easy for
the newbie" - yea marginally. However...my main
goal is getting my job done. I imagine that that
is the motivation behind most of the "Opensource"
advances. Its either to have fun...or get the
job done.
"Market Share" be dammned. I don't even care.
Why do we need to "Compete" with microsoft
or anyone...can't we just do our thing? If it
wins out and "dominates the market" well um like
hey cool...i'll party to that. If not...well hey
it works for me...ill party to that too.
In nay case...I would like to see an OS built on
the linux kernel that could soften the Unix
learning curve down to something like windows.
I wouldn't use it (don't need it) but I would be
happy to point newbies at it.
I guess what my point is, is that criticizing the
"Opensource" movement for "Not making easy and
innovative interfaces for neewbies" is like
criticizing the government of France for not
providing free health care to people of Zimbabwe.
For me, the goal of "open Source" (Or Free
Software to use the prefered term) is to share
code for universal benefit. Faster development
cycles and "extra eyes" are side benefits at
best (though, great benefits they are).
Common misconception (Score:5)
Most people use only 3-5 of the icons on their Windows desktop, without ever delving into any of the menus. AOL, Word, Internet Explorer is all they know.
For most people, it's all they need to know.
So when we talk of usability of Linux GUIs, there is nothing "hard" about starting Linux programs from the GUI. What gives average users trouble is installing the actual program.
For Windows most installers automatically put the icons on the desktop and the user never has to worry about fiddling with any settings.
There is an immense number of technical things going on with the installation of a Windows program, but the user never ever sees it. DLLs are copied,
The same should also work for installing Linux programs. Install scripts which hide the ugly technical stuff from the user, place an icon on the desktop, and thats all.
Instead of a "better" GUI, Linux needs a better install procedere which lets the user click and go.
Open Source Interface Guidelines (Score:5)