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I'd completely disagree. Software engineers tend to be very pragmatic. Perhaps it's really due to the involvement of the community but you look at open source s

by swiley 5y ago

I'd completely disagree. Software engineers tend to be very pragmatic. Perhaps it's really due to the involvement of the community but you look at open source software that has no "UX person" and it tends to be miles ahead of closed software that has them.

p0nce 5y ago
miles _ahead_? I'm not seeing that, at all. Software without UX persons... often has bad UX.
- handrous 5y ago
  I'd agree, for desktop programs specifically. "Web App" UX & design is a source of much UX & design employment, yet is largely god-awful, and it's infected desktop program design (via Electron, in part). The result is that 90s-style programmer-designed desktop UI sometimes is better, not because they're especially good, but because current trends are terrible and 90s-style desktop program design is better than what's trendy now. I don't think this means open source desktop programs are a great place to look for top-notch UI/UX inspiration.
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    >(via Electron, in part) Electron is basically the digital equivalent of coal-rolling in my opinion, technologies like React Native are a much more elegant way of achieving what Electron tries to.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> Perhaps it's really due to the involvement of the community but you look at open source software that has no "UX person" and it tends to be miles ahead of closed software that has them. You're setting a really low bar there. If you compare open source UX to the UX of closed source applications pre-iphone, you'll find that their incomprehensibility was frequently criticized. Case in point: GIMP. What's changed is that closed source UX has gotten worse faster than open source UX (unless you count GNOME, which has set world records for how fast it degraded).
- swiley 5y ago
  Why does everyone point out GIMP as having bad UX? You apt-get install it, you double click on your photo, you use a pretty standard WIMP interface to edit it. Compared to modern Adobe software that's fucking amazing.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I'm fairly certain literally everyone who works with image editing for a living will disagree with you on that. Hell, even Paint.NET has a better interface than GIMP.
    - swiley 5y ago
      If we're going to get into specialized software why not compare OpenSSH to RDP?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - zxzax 5y ago
      It would be nice if you were more specific. Most of the serious complaints I see artists making about GIMP are about lack of non-destructive editing features, or about lack of support for specific workflows, which are technical issues, not UX ones (and ones that are being addressed, slowly).
      - username90 5y ago
        I want to do a basic thing in gimp, draw a circle. How do you do that? First you click the rectangle button, then you select "elipse select", then you select an area, then you click edit and fill with color. This flow is much more unintuitive compared to anything else I've seen, why would you click on the rectangle to draw an ellipse? And then suddenly that button is no an ellipse, so next time you want to draw a rectangle you now have to click on the ellipse button and switch it back to a rectangle. And that is just one thing, the whole program is littered with small obnoxious design decisions like that. Maybe you can learn to get used to it after a while, but if you have to go through a tutorial and get lost the first 20 times you try to draw a basic shape then your drawing program has bad UX. In the end you will learn that the ellipse button and rectangle button are the same things etc, but until you learn all those things the program is just frustrating to use.
sebular 5y ago
How do you explain the loathsome UX of software like GIMP?
- brailsafe 5y ago
  The UX of gimp is fine, it's just ugly as sin. That's where a real designer comes in rather than a glorified wireframer who took psych 101

by swiley 5y ago

p0nce 5y ago

miles _ahead_? I'm not seeing that, at all. Software without UX persons... often has bad UX.

handrous 5y ago
I'd agree, for desktop programs specifically. "Web App" UX & design is a source of much UX & design employment, yet is largely god-awful, and it's infected desktop program design (via Electron, in part). The result is that 90s-style programmer-designed desktop UI sometimes is better, not because they're especially good, but because current trends are terrible and 90s-style desktop program design is better than what's trendy now. I don't think this means open source desktop programs are a great place to look for top-notch UI/UX inspiration.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  >(via Electron, in part) Electron is basically the digital equivalent of coal-rolling in my opinion, technologies like React Native are a much more elegant way of achieving what Electron tries to.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> Perhaps it's really due to the involvement of the community but you look at open source software that has no "UX person" and it tends to be miles ahead of closed software that has them. You're setting a really low bar there. If you compare open source UX to the UX of closed source applications pre-iphone, you'll find that their incomprehensibility was frequently criticized. Case in point: GIMP. What's changed is that closed source UX has gotten worse faster than open source UX (unless you count GNOME, which has set world records for how fast it degraded).

swiley 5y ago
Why does everyone point out GIMP as having bad UX? You apt-get install it, you double click on your photo, you use a pretty standard WIMP interface to edit it. Compared to modern Adobe software that's fucking amazing.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  I'm fairly certain literally everyone who works with image editing for a living will disagree with you on that. Hell, even Paint.NET has a better interface than GIMP.
  - swiley 5y ago
    If we're going to get into specialized software why not compare OpenSSH to RDP?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - zxzax 5y ago
    It would be nice if you were more specific. Most of the serious complaints I see artists making about GIMP are about lack of non-destructive editing features, or about lack of support for specific workflows, which are technical issues, not UX ones (and ones that are being addressed, slowly).
    - username90 5y ago
      I want to do a basic thing in gimp, draw a circle. How do you do that? First you click the rectangle button, then you select "elipse select", then you select an area, then you click edit and fill with color. This flow is much more unintuitive compared to anything else I've seen, why would you click on the rectangle to draw an ellipse? And then suddenly that button is no an ellipse, so next time you want to draw a rectangle you now have to click on the ellipse button and switch it back to a rectangle. And that is just one thing, the whole program is littered with small obnoxious design decisions like that. Maybe you can learn to get used to it after a while, but if you have to go through a tutorial and get lost the first 20 times you try to draw a basic shape then your drawing program has bad UX. In the end you will learn that the ellipse button and rectangle button are the same things etc, but until you learn all those things the program is just frustrating to use.

sebular 5y ago

How do you explain the loathsome UX of software like GIMP?

brailsafe 5y ago
The UX of gimp is fine, it's just ugly as sin. That's where a real designer comes in rather than a glorified wireframer who took psych 101