On Jun 4, 2004, at 8:04 AM, Jeff Tickle wrote:
We need to show some good designers the awesome power of The Gimp to entice them over to Linux, and get them to pump out interfaces for us. ;-)
Responding to Jeff's comment:
To begin with, the type of people who make stuff user friendly aren't graphic artists (generally), but Interaction Designers. We study how people use computers, we study what they understand about the system and what they don't, what parts of the user interface allow them to get their tasks done and what parts hold them back, how fast can they can learn a new UI, etc.
Graphic artists, on the other hand, are the people who make things "look pretty", sometimes (but not always) to the detriment of the usability of the system (*cough*BlueCurve*cough*). One of the big mistakes that the linux community has made for many years is to mistake aesthetic beauty for excellent user interaction. The result is that we have more and more beautifully anti-aliased dialogs that are no more usable than they were three years ago and confuse just as many end users and cause them to lose just as many documents.
As for Gimp, Interaction Designers tend to point out Gimp as an example of the incompetence of the Linux community at designing user interfaces, much the same way the Linux community points out IIS as an example of Microsoft's incompetence at designing secure server software. Gimp is, in essence, the piping hot cup of coffee that has been shoved into the CD-ROM "cupholder" of good design.
On Fri, 2004-06-04 at 07:20, Magnus Hedemark wrote:On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, Jeff Tickle wrote:
Call me crazy, but I'm convinced that we seriously have a chance to make
a specifically user-friendly distribution of Linux.
These have been around for years. Corel Linux was, IMO, the first. These
days I think Novell SuSE Linux 9.1 takes the prize. Put a complete newb
in front of SuSE 9.1 (after it is already installed, as this is what most
Windows users would experience also). Then put the same person in front
of XP. See if they think one is particularly easier to use than the
other.
The OS itself has gotten pretty slick. Linux is hurting badly on the
application front. We have a zillion apps but many of these are half
finished (or feel that way, anyway), and few are as easy to use out of the
box as your average commercial Windoze or Mac app. I think that the KDE
guys are making it easier to make applications friendly by abstracting a
lot of the user interface into the API so applications have a consistent
look & feel within KDE.
Part of the problem, IMHO, is that FOSS is usually lead by programmers,
who are more often than not lousy at UI design. There is a natural
resistance to non-programmers giving any sort of direction in application
design.
Couldn't agree more. Most Interaction Designers don't want to have anything to do with Linux as a result of this. Too often people in the Linux development community (e.g. prominent kernel hackers, Ximian employees, Open Source leaders, etc) have told us "Free Software doesn't entitle you to a usable interface", "quit whining about what you're getting for free", "go code it yourself", "how dare you criticize the work of volunteers", "don't listen to these so-called 'usability experts', etc. When we suggest making some feature more graphical, we get accused of "wanting it to be like Windows", no matter how much we try to explain it as a usability issue and one of keeping consistent metaphor and not one of aping Microsoft. When we try to explain why it's important for them to design the UI at the beginning of the development process before any code is written, they tell us "you obviously don't understand the Open Source method". We see Linux distributions getting hundreds of millions of dollars from IPO's and from being bought out and then spending virtually nothing usability research while gorging themselves on one tech company or dot com or kernel hacker salary after another (note: it is generally recommended that 10% of an organization's software development budget be spent on usability). To finally add insult to injury, we're called "M$ Shills" or are accused of "Spreading FUD and lies about Linux being hard to use" by these very same exact people after we point out the awful UI's that have resulted from their entrenched stupidity.
The FOSS community has always considered Interaction Design to be far less valuable and important that something like coding, has considered it something that really doesn't require any spending on the part of the linux distributions, and something insignificant that can be added on at the last minute after all the "important work" of writing code has been done. And this has had an absolutely devastating effect on the usability of FOSS software, and really explains why linux has been around for 10 years and after all that time still produces nothing truly deserving of a place outside of a server closet or a geek's bedroom.
This is one of the major downsides to the Open Source development model.
This is where I disagree. This issue has absolutely nothing to do with the Open Source development model and absolutely everything to do Unix Cultural Bigotry(tm). When we look at the real attitudes that hold usability of Linux back, we find that they really have nothing or very little to do with actual openness of code and a hell of a lot to do with long-held beliefs of the Unix culture. Joel Spolsky of "Joel On Software" fame wrote a very good article on the cultural beliefs of the Unix crowd and how they prevent Linux from going mainstream.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html
I've found that most criticisms of Open Source are not really criticisms of the model itself but unknowing criticisms of the fact that Open Source movement is so dominated and controlled by Unix people.
-- Ilan Volow Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
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