[TriLUG] User Friendliness

[Ilan Volow]

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!