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> Adding features and settings is fun and often done without much second thought. In the end, it results in a bloated beast that causes a lot of confusion and f
by ekidd 7y ago
> Adding features and settings is fun and often done without much second thought. In the end, it results in a bloated beast that causes a lot of confusion and frustration, especially among the type of users most open-source projects are missing, the average user who just wants to get things done.
A few large open source projects have tried to improve usability by removing features and options. Look at the history of Gnome 1 through 3. Professional UI experts were paid to produce usability advice for Gnome[1], and the Gnome developers responded with the wholesale removal of configuration options across dozens of major programs[2].
Mostly I actually liked this, because I prefer clean programs that I don't have to mess with. But a lot of other users were unhappy, because many desktop Linux users prefer knobs. Which is fine!
But what about Windows users and open source applications? Here, success may be more of a mixed blessing. I've heard several open source maintainers say that their Windows users are more likely to get angry with volunteer maintainers, and to display the sorts of behaviors mentioned in [3]. So widespread popularity isn't always a goal. Sometimes people just want to make a niche tool for other enthusiasts.
So it's worth asking whether any given project is seriously trying appeal to "the average user who just wants to get things done." Some are, some aren't.
[1] https://people.gnome.org/~calum/usability/ut1_report/report_main.html https://people.gnome.org/~calum/usability/ut1_report/report_...
[2] https://ometer.com/preferences.html https://ometer.com/preferences.html
[3] https://medium.com/@fommil/the-open-source-entitlement-complex-bcb718e2326d https://medium.com/@fommil/the-open-source-entitlement-compl...
- chrisseaton 7y ago> Sun GNOME Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Sun Microsystems, Inc Do you know the story behind why Sun was doing this work? I had no idea they were involved in this major culture shift in Gnome. I thought they were more invested in CDE. You can see their focus - business users, scientists, creatives - and how that might have led to the current design philosophy of Gnome.
- bkor 7y ago> Do you know the story behind why Sun was doing this work? See e.g. https://www.gnome.org/press/2000/08/sun-joins-gnome-foundation/ https://www.gnome.org/press/2000/08/sun-joins-gnome-foundati.... Quote: > Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced it is joining the GNOME Foundation [..] Sun also announced it will adopt GNOME 2.0 as the future desktop for its Solaris[tm] Operating Environment. Be warned, above announcement is from August 2000.
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoOpenSolaris used Gnome2 by default until Oracle killed it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y agoAnd I believe OpenIndiana is still using MATE as their default DE, which is... sorta funny actually; the fork/continuation of OpenSolaris running the fork/continuation of GNOME 2.
- ldng 7y agoSun contributed a lot of A11y because they wanted it to pass US regulations on accessibility.
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoI don't think there needs to be any friction between "knobs" and "usable design"; in may ways the absence of knobs can be deeply user unfriendly as well. It's all about how well it's designed and explained. Not infrequently a settings page grows and grows until it becomes a chaotic mess, but that's not a problem of the knobs as such, but rather of the design of the settings page. Also, a lot of the times the inline documentation leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps the best example of this are many games where the graphics settings are just a jumble of technical terms with no explanation or even indication what is faster.