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The problem with Inkscape, as well as other open source gui apps, is that there's nobody to lead a holistic UX QA process, and so they're full of enough bugs, e

The problem with Inkscape, as well as other open source gui apps, is that there's nobody to lead a holistic UX QA process, and so they're full of enough bugs, edge cases, and general UX fail, that it's a chore to use the app, and you're constantly worried that you'll hit something big enough that you can't complete your work. I've had this happen often enough with libreoffice that I've stopped using it.

mortenjorck 7y ago
I’d love to see a case study of how Blender managed its massive 2.8 UX overhaul. It’s the only major open-source application I know of that’s pulled something like that off. [edit: changed 1.8 to 2.8]
- solarkraft 7y ago
  From my extremely limited involvement in the community it seems like it was started by one artist publishing a very dreamy vision of "this is what the future of Blender could look like" to his followers. It seems like people liked it enough that a lot of it was eventually incorporated. It might have also started a wave of enthusiasm for more people to become involved.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  I think you mean either 2.5 or 2.8. 2.49 was the last one with the really inscrutable old UI, 2.5 was a big overhaul but still had a lot of basic functionality buried behind hotkeys or menus, and 2.8 is the relatively recent one with a lot of that basic functionality exposed. I don't follow the blender development process too closely, but I think Blender Guru's videos kicked off a lot of the 2.8 design work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWacQrEcMHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWacQrEcMHk Along with lots of discussion elsewhere as the actual redesign was underway https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-2-8-user-interface-design/505 https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-2-8-user-interface-des...
Brakenshire 7y ago
Are there any open source apps with clear HIGs, backed up by a test suite which enforces them?
- snazz 7y ago
  elementary OS has one, which is well-enforced in their first-party and many third-party apps: https://elementary.io/docs/human-interface-guidelines https://elementary.io/docs/human-interface-guidelines Of course, as soon as you go outside that, you run into the fragmentation prevalent in the Linux desktop. For light computer users or people who can get by without a bunch of specialized graphical apps, it works well and is very intuitive.
hutzlibu 7y ago
"I've had this happen often enough with libreoffice that I've stopped using it." But did you had it with inkscape? Also, what was the issue with libreoffice that blocked you from completing your work? Because, I can imagine many issues with libreoffice, but mainly with microsoft office documents, importing them etc. but experienced no issues with the actual program - except it is horrible from a designers point of view, but I also despise microsoft office. So if I had to designe a page, I usually used - Inkscape. Which I like a lot more than Illustrator.
- kstenerud 7y ago
  - Style settings that would permanently break when changed (changing the style back to what it was before would not fix it). - TOC links that stopped working - TOC items that disappeared - Inconsistent alignment (where the same style would be off by a few pixels on different pages) - Inconsistent page headers (where some elements would not show, depending on how many pages you have) - Scripting that yields different visual results each time you run it (this is where I gave up) - Disappearing cells - Mysterious blank pages that you can't delete without breaking everything else using the same page style - Inconsistent results when printing (what you print is not what the document shows) This is using purely native document formats, not cross-format. Just before giving up, I downloaded the source code to see what was breaking (in the scripting). And then I understood. I can't remember what issues I had with Inkscape since it was awhile ago. I only remember being aggravated enough to invest time in learning a replacement tool and redoing all my work. Gimp has tons of UI bugs as well (rectangle select gets stuck in subtract mode, for example), but so far nothing quite bad enough that it can't be fixed by saving, restarting, reloading.
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    "Scripting that yields different visual results each time you run it (this is where I gave up)" Ah yeah, I remember, this is why I stopped digging more into it, after weird starting results. And I remembered my main issue with inkscape: text editing. I would actually consider it broken beyond repair at the current state. Which is sad, as otherwise I am really happy with inkscape. But I also very clearly remember the statement from the main dev from inkscape, when people ask him, if the next version of inkscape could have feature xyz: he then just replies with a one liner, his bank account number.
cptskippy 7y ago
I really hate this statement. You're asserting that because the project doesn't have somebody in a dedicated role they have bugs, unspecified issues, and subjective "problems". Not only is it a logical fallacy, it asserts nebulous "faults" that can't be addressed because they're so ill defined. None of what you're asserting is true of Inkscape. I've been using it for 10 years and while the UI/UX isn't familiar, there's nothing wrong with it. It isn't chock full of bugs or "edge case" (whatever the hell that means) and like all UI/UX it has rough edges AND that's no different from any other sufficiently complex Application. Does it follow Adobe's UI/UX paradigm? No. Is that bad? No. If you started out using an Adobe competitor in the 90s then you might be familiar with alternatives, that's where I started and I can't stand the UI/UX in Adobe products to this day.
- andai 7y ago
  It feels like it wasn't designed, but grew.
  - cptskippy 7y ago
    That's the nature of most mature sufficiently complex software. They don't start out as a set of user requirements cleanly laid out that are developed in a straight shot waterfall process. Instead they grow organically over time and are a reflection not just how things are implemented but also of when they were implemented.
    - taywrobel 7y ago
      The difference is it with software that has product management, it can grow and shrink. Features can be dropped, deprecated, or re-worked into a more appropriate presentation. With OSS it seems like everything is additive, since you have no idea what users are using what features. The blender 2.50 release was awful for me, since it broke so many of my workflows, but the UI absolutely needed a revamp, and I have incredible respect for the team throwing so much away to make something better. I wish more open source software would delete more things in order to provide a better or more thought out user experience. I’ll also note that telling users that their sub-par user experience doesn’t mean that the application has bad UX is foolish. That’s what user experience is. And it’s not a unique position; look at the comments here. The number one complaint is UX. These people ARE the users. I can’t imagine more direct feedback than that.
wpietri 7y ago
Are you claiming this is true about Inkscape? I agree with you on Openoffice/Libreoffice (although we disagree about the cause). But Inkscape has always struck me an exception. If you are saying it has a bad UI, could you say more about what you tried to use it for, and what other vector-graphics program you've spent a lot of time in?
- jansan 7y ago
  I always found Inkscape next to unusable compared with Corel Draw, Illustrator and Affinity Designer. Tried it several times, always gave up. In v0.92 (I know, not latest version) if I moved a point near the end of a path, points near the other end of the path suddenly started moving. Totally weird. I do not know how people can do serious work with this.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    I think "I once found a bug" is not quite the same thing as "this has a bad UI because of a lack of holistic UX QA process".
newscracker 7y ago
Off topic for this conversation, but I agree with you on LibreOffice. The only reason I use it is because I want to use an open data format that’s more likely to exist for a longer time. I hate its ’90s style UI, the UX, the fonts, layout, menus, keyboard shortcuts that are very different from the more popular proprietary alternatives, etc. The worst of this is that it doesn’t have a working copy paste I can rely on. It seems to have its own clipboard that dislikes the OS clipboard. All these experiences make it impossible to sell it to someone who doesn’t care much about proprietary vs. open. P.S.: I donate money periodically to The Document Foundation, the organization behind LibreOffice.
Vinnl 7y ago
Interestingly Inkscape started as a fork of Sodipodi, because its original author didn't want to merge UX improvements, IIRC.
itronitron 7y ago
I've used both LibreOffice and Inkscape enough to know that Inkscape is very capable of doing complex and detailed work. If you have a design process then you can make Inkscape work into that fairly easily. I know UI designers that are not able to take advantage of Inkscape's freedom however that speaks more to their innate curiosity and creativity than Inkscape's capabilities.

mortenjorck 7y ago

I’d love to see a case study of how Blender managed its massive 2.8 UX overhaul. It’s the only major open-source application I know of that’s pulled something like that off. [edit: changed 1.8 to 2.8]

solarkraft 7y ago
From my extremely limited involvement in the community it seems like it was started by one artist publishing a very dreamy vision of "this is what the future of Blender could look like" to his followers. It seems like people liked it enough that a lot of it was eventually incorporated. It might have also started a wave of enthusiasm for more people to become involved.
wlesieutre 7y ago
I think you mean either 2.5 or 2.8. 2.49 was the last one with the really inscrutable old UI, 2.5 was a big overhaul but still had a lot of basic functionality buried behind hotkeys or menus, and 2.8 is the relatively recent one with a lot of that basic functionality exposed. I don't follow the blender development process too closely, but I think Blender Guru's videos kicked off a lot of the 2.8 design work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWacQrEcMHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWacQrEcMHk Along with lots of discussion elsewhere as the actual redesign was underway https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-2-8-user-interface-design/505 https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-2-8-user-interface-des...

Brakenshire 7y ago

Are there any open source apps with clear HIGs, backed up by a test suite which enforces them?

snazz 7y ago
elementary OS has one, which is well-enforced in their first-party and many third-party apps: https://elementary.io/docs/human-interface-guidelines https://elementary.io/docs/human-interface-guidelines Of course, as soon as you go outside that, you run into the fragmentation prevalent in the Linux desktop. For light computer users or people who can get by without a bunch of specialized graphical apps, it works well and is very intuitive.

hutzlibu 7y ago

"I've had this happen often enough with libreoffice that I've stopped using it." But did you had it with inkscape? Also, what was the issue with libreoffice that blocked you from completing your work? Because, I can imagine many issues with libreoffice, but mainly with microsoft office documents, importing them etc. but experienced no issues with the actual program - except it is horrible from a designers point of view, but I also despise microsoft office. So if I had to designe a page, I usually used - Inkscape. Which I like a lot more than Illustrator.

kstenerud 7y ago
- Style settings that would permanently break when changed (changing the style back to what it was before would not fix it). - TOC links that stopped working - TOC items that disappeared - Inconsistent alignment (where the same style would be off by a few pixels on different pages) - Inconsistent page headers (where some elements would not show, depending on how many pages you have) - Scripting that yields different visual results each time you run it (this is where I gave up) - Disappearing cells - Mysterious blank pages that you can't delete without breaking everything else using the same page style - Inconsistent results when printing (what you print is not what the document shows) This is using purely native document formats, not cross-format. Just before giving up, I downloaded the source code to see what was breaking (in the scripting). And then I understood. I can't remember what issues I had with Inkscape since it was awhile ago. I only remember being aggravated enough to invest time in learning a replacement tool and redoing all my work. Gimp has tons of UI bugs as well (rectangle select gets stuck in subtract mode, for example), but so far nothing quite bad enough that it can't be fixed by saving, restarting, reloading.
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  "Scripting that yields different visual results each time you run it (this is where I gave up)" Ah yeah, I remember, this is why I stopped digging more into it, after weird starting results. And I remembered my main issue with inkscape: text editing. I would actually consider it broken beyond repair at the current state. Which is sad, as otherwise I am really happy with inkscape. But I also very clearly remember the statement from the main dev from inkscape, when people ask him, if the next version of inkscape could have feature xyz: he then just replies with a one liner, his bank account number.

cptskippy 7y ago

I really hate this statement. You're asserting that because the project doesn't have somebody in a dedicated role they have bugs, unspecified issues, and subjective "problems". Not only is it a logical fallacy, it asserts nebulous "faults" that can't be addressed because they're so ill defined. None of what you're asserting is true of Inkscape. I've been using it for 10 years and while the UI/UX isn't familiar, there's nothing wrong with it. It isn't chock full of bugs or "edge case" (whatever the hell that means) and like all UI/UX it has rough edges AND that's no different from any other sufficiently complex Application. Does it follow Adobe's UI/UX paradigm? No. Is that bad? No. If you started out using an Adobe competitor in the 90s then you might be familiar with alternatives, that's where I started and I can't stand the UI/UX in Adobe products to this day.

andai 7y ago
It feels like it wasn't designed, but grew.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  That's the nature of most mature sufficiently complex software. They don't start out as a set of user requirements cleanly laid out that are developed in a straight shot waterfall process. Instead they grow organically over time and are a reflection not just how things are implemented but also of when they were implemented.
  - taywrobel 7y ago
    The difference is it with software that has product management, it can grow and shrink. Features can be dropped, deprecated, or re-worked into a more appropriate presentation. With OSS it seems like everything is additive, since you have no idea what users are using what features. The blender 2.50 release was awful for me, since it broke so many of my workflows, but the UI absolutely needed a revamp, and I have incredible respect for the team throwing so much away to make something better. I wish more open source software would delete more things in order to provide a better or more thought out user experience. I’ll also note that telling users that their sub-par user experience doesn’t mean that the application has bad UX is foolish. That’s what user experience is. And it’s not a unique position; look at the comments here. The number one complaint is UX. These people ARE the users. I can’t imagine more direct feedback than that.

wpietri 7y ago

Are you claiming this is true about Inkscape? I agree with you on Openoffice/Libreoffice (although we disagree about the cause). But Inkscape has always struck me an exception. If you are saying it has a bad UI, could you say more about what you tried to use it for, and what other vector-graphics program you've spent a lot of time in?

jansan 7y ago
I always found Inkscape next to unusable compared with Corel Draw, Illustrator and Affinity Designer. Tried it several times, always gave up. In v0.92 (I know, not latest version) if I moved a point near the end of a path, points near the other end of the path suddenly started moving. Totally weird. I do not know how people can do serious work with this.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I think "I once found a bug" is not quite the same thing as "this has a bad UI because of a lack of holistic UX QA process".

newscracker 7y ago

Off topic for this conversation, but I agree with you on LibreOffice. The only reason I use it is because I want to use an open data format that’s more likely to exist for a longer time. I hate its ’90s style UI, the UX, the fonts, layout, menus, keyboard shortcuts that are very different from the more popular proprietary alternatives, etc. The worst of this is that it doesn’t have a working copy paste I can rely on. It seems to have its own clipboard that dislikes the OS clipboard. All these experiences make it impossible to sell it to someone who doesn’t care much about proprietary vs. open. P.S.: I donate money periodically to The Document Foundation, the organization behind LibreOffice.

Vinnl 7y ago

Interestingly Inkscape started as a fork of Sodipodi, because its original author didn't want to merge UX improvements, IIRC.

itronitron 7y ago

I've used both LibreOffice and Inkscape enough to know that Inkscape is very capable of doing complex and detailed work. If you have a design process then you can make Inkscape work into that fairly easily. I know UI designers that are not able to take advantage of Inkscape's freedom however that speaks more to their innate curiosity and creativity than Inkscape's capabilities.