Journal: Linux Windows

Ohh Microsoft! How you expect people to submit to your whims and follies is beyond my comprehension apparently. You attack the competitors, citing things that are bad about their products while all the time neglecting your own. I love the fact that IE continues to be the most exploited software ever yet Microsoft can give no viable reason for leaving these problems unchecked. A security vulnerability that allows IE to excute DOS commands, allowing malicious code from websites to execute deletion commands on DLL's, has been around since October. Has it been solved yet? I don't think so. There have even been patches released claiming to fix certain security holes, such as the desktop.ini exploit and numerous DoS, yet provide no additional protection.

All these security facts are more "after the fact" now for me. I've given up all hope for Windows, Microsoft even more, and made an almost complete transition to Mandrake. I will admit that Linux is far from user-friendly but the mentality behind every Linux distro is to allow a user COMPLETE control over their system, done to ever last corner of RAM(system or video). Before I go more into the user-friendliness of an OS, lets examine what it actually means to be user-friendly.

To most, user-friendly means 'easy to use'. Now I said "To most" which means user-friendly is a word whose definition is based on the person who is using it in reference to. The "Most" which I speak of are typical users, ones who would rather not worry about their monitor resolution or the fact that their video card isn't using all its RAM. User-friendly has also developed a negative conotation among the more experienced computer users. A quick search on Google reveals the following definiton from Hyperdictionary: Programmer-hostile. Generally used by hackers in a critical tone, to describe systems that hold the user's hand so obsessively that they make it painful for the more experienced and knowledgeable to get any work done. So while user-friendliness may be looked upon as a blessing for the computer-illiterate it is a curse for those who would rather bypass the whole 'babying' concept that materializing out of such 'friendliness'.

There is a point that friendliness becomes intrusive. At first, you may think that little paperclip in Word was a good idea. It provided insight into how to get certain things done. But what happens once you know everything that it's going to say? You find it annoying and realise that the overall concept was flawed in the first place. Only the ridiculously retarded would find 'Clippy' exciting and helpful after the first time they encounter it (no real offense to retarded people. I'm sure a lot out there would find Clippy to be annoying). With 'Clippy' though, it was more a matter of HOW information was presented to the user. A user would be constanly badgered by an animated graphic whenever they went to print, copy, paste, and numerous other formatting actions. Indeed, providing the user with information is correct but don't ridicule a person's intelligence by having an obviously anthropomophized give them advice. It would be better to make the advice appear to come directly from the people who created the software; this can provide a better link between the people using it and the creators of the software. Users see that they are getting advice not from some fake character but from real people who worked on the program.

The definition of user-friendly needs to be broad enough to encompass both casual and experienced computer users, not an easy task when you take in account how different the 2 groups are. Software that by default is useful to anyone is a good starting point. All the functionality of the program is present in a form that can allow any user to understand the purpose of the software. But the presentation of the functionality is what comes into play. Lets look at Roxio Easy Media Creator. The interface is pretty well designed, providing the users with several groups of options and then sub-options within those groups. However, this is presented in the form a of a wizard which, while useful for a new user, leaves the advanced user unsatisfied as to the configurability they apparently have. Roxio doesn't fail when it comes to user-friendliness; there is a wizard but the main underlying program can be accessed at anytime so the experienced user to go more in depth into the options and configurations. Users aren't limited to a single path in order to accomplish a goal. Roxio provides the user with mulitple paths to reach the same end product.

It seems now we have a fairly good working definition of what is user-friendly. 'A product or service that is organized to be easily understood and executed by users of varying expertise.' The key words in this definition is 'varying expertise' because the computer world is obviously full of people with different experience levels. Microsoft claims to be user-friendly because they warp their own definition of user-friendly. A 'user' to them is someone with a bare minimum knowledge of a computer( thats the screen, thats the keyboard, and thats the mouse. If you get anymore indepth with these people, their heads will explode.) So if this is their definition of a user, one can say that Microsoft's products are user-friendly. But thats using their own definition; lets try the one we just came up with. When we do, we find that there is little to no 'varying expertise' in how Windows functions. It treats every user with the same ignorance that Microsoft has shown for years. Nobody cares that the experts can't configure their computer to their liking because to Microsoft its a risk to allow users so much control over their computer. Why does Microsoft feel it needs to continually dumb down its target users? Well, the more you make everything automatic, the more people will fall into the trap. That is the problem that this whole user-friendliness issue comes to. Microsoft has created its own definition of what user-friendly is, thereby forcing this defintion onto millions of unsuspecting people world-wide. What people have to do know is cry foul, demand that Microsoft change its definition, or forever be stuck in a false world of 'user-friendliness.'