[TriLUG] User Friendliness

[Magnus Hedemark]

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.  This is one of the major downsides to the Open Source development 
model.