5 ms·

The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/2

by dayvid 11mo ago

The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/20 use case for normal/majority or users or would risk hurting their workflow to make it easier for others

zeroq 11mo ago
> contributors of free software tend to be power users or, simply put, nerds it takes both a different background, approach and skillset to design ux and interface if anything FOSS should figure out how to attract skilled artists so majority of designs and logos doesn't look so blatantly amateurish.
- DrewADesign 11mo ago
  I have been beating this drum for many years. There are some big cultural rifts and workflow difficulties. Unless FOSS products are run by project managers rather than either developers or designers, it’s a tough nut. Last I looked, gimp has been really tackling this effort more aggressively than most.
  - graemep 11mo ago
    I am not convinced bad UI is either a FOSS issue, or solved by having project managers. I know very non-tech people who struggle with Windows 11, for example. I do not like MS Office on the rare occasions I have used it on other people's machines. Not that impressed by the way most browser UIs are going either.
    - DrewADesign 11mo ago
      Microsoft has been lagging on interface design for a long time. If the project managers are focused on forcing users into monetizable paths against their will, then of course you’re going to get crap interfaces and crap software quality. If you have a project manager that’s focused on directing people to solve problems for users rather than people just bolting on whatever makes sense, then that’s a lot different. And no, bad UIs aren’t inherent to FOSS— look at Firefox, Blender, Signal… all FOSS projects that are managed by people focused on integrating the most important features in a way that makes sense for the ecosystem.
  - Cotterzz 11mo ago
    gimp has been my goto when I want to explain bad ui, developer designed ui, or just typical foss ui I'm glad they're fixing it. It's also my image editor of choice.
    - DrewADesign 11mo ago
      Yeah I’ve been using it as a go-to example for the wrongest approach to UI design for years. I’m glad to see they’re working harder than most to fix some of the underlying problems.
- phendrenad2 11mo ago
  I'm optimistic that the rise of vibe coding will allow the people who understand the user's wants and needs to fix the world's FOSS UIs.
  - moring 11mo ago
    I'm sceptical about fixing (in the sense of a lasting solution), but it might be a very powerful tool to communicate to devs what the UI should look like.
- WD-42 11mo ago
  My guess is that, as has always been, the pool of people willing to code for free on their own time because it's fun is just much larger than the people willing to make icons for software projects on their own time because they think it's fun.
  - ambicapter 11mo ago
    Much larger but not non-existent, people post their work (including laborious stuff like icon suites and themes) on art forums and websites for no gain all the time.
    - keyringlight 11mo ago
      Going back to the winxp days there was a fairly vibrant group of people making unofficial themes for it, although I think that was helped by the existence of tools (from Stardock?) specialized on that task and making it approachable if your skill set didn't align perfectly.
  - zer00eyz 11mo ago
    UI != icons. UI and UX are for all intents lost arts. No one is sitting on the other side of a 2 way mirror any more and watching people use their app... This is how we get UI's that work but suck to use. This is how we allow dark patterns to flourish. You can and will happily do things your users/customers hate if it makes a dent in the bottom of the eye and you dont have to face their criticisms directly.
    - lamontcg 11mo ago
      > UI and UX are for all intents lost arts. No one is sitting on the other side of a 2 way mirror any more and watching people use their app... Which is also why UI/UX on open source projects are generally going to suck. There's certainly no money to pay for that kind of experiment. And if you include telemetry, people lose their goddamn minds, assuming the open source author isn't morally against it to begin with. The result is you're just getting the author's intuitive guesswork about UI/UX design, by someone who is likely more of a coder than a design person.
- 8note 11mo ago
  UX and interface designers are also nerds. i think the bigger issue is that the power users usecases are different from the non-power users. not a skillset problem, but an incentive one
- array_key_first 11mo ago
  They're not just nerds, they're power users. These are different things. Pretty much everyone is a power user of SOME software. That might be Excel, that might be their payroll processor, that might be their employee data platform. Because you have to be if you work a normal desk job. If Excel was simpler and had an intuitive UI, it would be worthless. Because simple UI works for the first 100 hours, maybe. Then it's actively an obstacle because you need to do eccentric shit as fast as possible and you can't. Then, that's where the keyboard shortcuts and 100 buttons shoved on a page somewhere come in. That's where the lack of whitespace comes in. Those aren't downsides anymore.
  - csin 11mo ago
    "If Excel was simpler and had an intuitive UI, it would be worthless." Excel is a simple intuitive UI. I use 10% of Excel. I don't even know the 90% of what it's capable of. It hides away it's complexity. For people that need the complex stuff, they can access it via menus/formulas. For the rest of us, we don't even know it's there. Whereas, Handbrake shoves all the complexity in your face. It's overwhelming for first time users.
    - array_key_first 11mo ago
      > For people that need the complex stuff, they can access it via menus/formulas. Yes, this is an obstacle. This makes your software worse for power users. Because now they have to jump through hoops. If they just took all those options and dumped them somewhere, that would be better. Okay, another example: a datagrid or table. In naive apps targeting consumers, they're filled with whitespace and they're simple to look at. Great, right? Oh... you need to see more information than the absolute bare bones? It's okay, you can click 'show more'. The problem is that, now, it takes too much time. What if I want to see 50 results at the same time? Gulp. If I have to click show more 10 times to do that, I'm taking my computer and throwing it out the window. I don't give a rats ass about your whitespace or visual hierarchy. I want the software to do the thing for me so I can move on with my life. This is why people will SWEAR by old software. There are many people who refuse to use modern versions of Excel. Because it's too annoying to use, and they use it all day long, so that's not acceptable.
- Panzer04 11mo ago
  The person who is going to bother adding stuff to a piece of software is almost certainly by definition a power-user. This means they want to add features they couldn't get anywhere else, and already know how to use the existing UI. Onboarding new users is just not their problem or something they care about - They are interested in their own utility, because they aren't getting paid to care about someone else's. It's not a "nerd" thing.
BinaryIgor 11mo ago
True; that's why we have companies with paid product who devote a lot of their time - arguably majority - to make the exact interfaces people want and understand:) it's a ton, a ton of difficult work, for which there is little to no incentive in the free software ecosystem
psunavy03 11mo ago
And this is precisely why desktop Linux has not knocked off Windows or MacOS.
- bigfishrunning 11mo ago
  And that's fine. Those users who want something that's not like desktop Linux have plenty of options.
  - ghaff 11mo ago
    And increasingly it doesn't matter because they just live in a browser anyway.
    - thinkmassive 11mo ago
      Which also makes it easier than ever for more users to run Linux as a desktop OS :)
      - ghaff 11mo ago
        Absolutely. I still prefer MacOS/Mac hardware in some ways but running a browser on Linux on a Thinkpad or whatever works pretty well for a lot of purposes.
- ripdog 11mo ago
  I'd argue that's more because the average person has no interest in installing a new OS, or even any idea what an OS is. Most people just keep the default. When the default is Linux (say, the Steam Deck), most people just keep Linux.
- valyala 11mo ago
  Omarchy tries resolving this https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy
  - a96 11mo ago
port11 11mo ago
After reading so many apologist comments dismissing the article's points with whataboutism, yours is the first comment that I think addresses the situation properly. As a developer, it's very hard to not mistake the forest for the trees, which is why I'm usually very happy to work with a good UX researcher.

by dayvid 11mo ago

zeroq 11mo ago

> contributors of free software tend to be power users or, simply put, nerds it takes both a different background, approach and skillset to design ux and interface if anything FOSS should figure out how to attract skilled artists so majority of designs and logos doesn't look so blatantly amateurish.

DrewADesign 11mo ago
I have been beating this drum for many years. There are some big cultural rifts and workflow difficulties. Unless FOSS products are run by project managers rather than either developers or designers, it’s a tough nut. Last I looked, gimp has been really tackling this effort more aggressively than most.
- graemep 11mo ago
  I am not convinced bad UI is either a FOSS issue, or solved by having project managers. I know very non-tech people who struggle with Windows 11, for example. I do not like MS Office on the rare occasions I have used it on other people's machines. Not that impressed by the way most browser UIs are going either.
  - DrewADesign 11mo ago
    Microsoft has been lagging on interface design for a long time. If the project managers are focused on forcing users into monetizable paths against their will, then of course you’re going to get crap interfaces and crap software quality. If you have a project manager that’s focused on directing people to solve problems for users rather than people just bolting on whatever makes sense, then that’s a lot different. And no, bad UIs aren’t inherent to FOSS— look at Firefox, Blender, Signal… all FOSS projects that are managed by people focused on integrating the most important features in a way that makes sense for the ecosystem.
- Cotterzz 11mo ago
  gimp has been my goto when I want to explain bad ui, developer designed ui, or just typical foss ui I'm glad they're fixing it. It's also my image editor of choice.
  - DrewADesign 11mo ago
    Yeah I’ve been using it as a go-to example for the wrongest approach to UI design for years. I’m glad to see they’re working harder than most to fix some of the underlying problems.
phendrenad2 11mo ago
I'm optimistic that the rise of vibe coding will allow the people who understand the user's wants and needs to fix the world's FOSS UIs.
- moring 11mo ago
  I'm sceptical about fixing (in the sense of a lasting solution), but it might be a very powerful tool to communicate to devs what the UI should look like.
WD-42 11mo ago
My guess is that, as has always been, the pool of people willing to code for free on their own time because it's fun is just much larger than the people willing to make icons for software projects on their own time because they think it's fun.
- ambicapter 11mo ago
  Much larger but not non-existent, people post their work (including laborious stuff like icon suites and themes) on art forums and websites for no gain all the time.
  - keyringlight 11mo ago
    Going back to the winxp days there was a fairly vibrant group of people making unofficial themes for it, although I think that was helped by the existence of tools (from Stardock?) specialized on that task and making it approachable if your skill set didn't align perfectly.
- zer00eyz 11mo ago
  UI != icons. UI and UX are for all intents lost arts. No one is sitting on the other side of a 2 way mirror any more and watching people use their app... This is how we get UI's that work but suck to use. This is how we allow dark patterns to flourish. You can and will happily do things your users/customers hate if it makes a dent in the bottom of the eye and you dont have to face their criticisms directly.
  - lamontcg 11mo ago
    > UI and UX are for all intents lost arts. No one is sitting on the other side of a 2 way mirror any more and watching people use their app... Which is also why UI/UX on open source projects are generally going to suck. There's certainly no money to pay for that kind of experiment. And if you include telemetry, people lose their goddamn minds, assuming the open source author isn't morally against it to begin with. The result is you're just getting the author's intuitive guesswork about UI/UX design, by someone who is likely more of a coder than a design person.
8note 11mo ago
UX and interface designers are also nerds. i think the bigger issue is that the power users usecases are different from the non-power users. not a skillset problem, but an incentive one
array_key_first 11mo ago
They're not just nerds, they're power users. These are different things. Pretty much everyone is a power user of SOME software. That might be Excel, that might be their payroll processor, that might be their employee data platform. Because you have to be if you work a normal desk job. If Excel was simpler and had an intuitive UI, it would be worthless. Because simple UI works for the first 100 hours, maybe. Then it's actively an obstacle because you need to do eccentric shit as fast as possible and you can't. Then, that's where the keyboard shortcuts and 100 buttons shoved on a page somewhere come in. That's where the lack of whitespace comes in. Those aren't downsides anymore.
- csin 11mo ago
  "If Excel was simpler and had an intuitive UI, it would be worthless." Excel is a simple intuitive UI. I use 10% of Excel. I don't even know the 90% of what it's capable of. It hides away it's complexity. For people that need the complex stuff, they can access it via menus/formulas. For the rest of us, we don't even know it's there. Whereas, Handbrake shoves all the complexity in your face. It's overwhelming for first time users.
  - array_key_first 11mo ago
    > For people that need the complex stuff, they can access it via menus/formulas. Yes, this is an obstacle. This makes your software worse for power users. Because now they have to jump through hoops. If they just took all those options and dumped them somewhere, that would be better. Okay, another example: a datagrid or table. In naive apps targeting consumers, they're filled with whitespace and they're simple to look at. Great, right? Oh... you need to see more information than the absolute bare bones? It's okay, you can click 'show more'. The problem is that, now, it takes too much time. What if I want to see 50 results at the same time? Gulp. If I have to click show more 10 times to do that, I'm taking my computer and throwing it out the window. I don't give a rats ass about your whitespace or visual hierarchy. I want the software to do the thing for me so I can move on with my life. This is why people will SWEAR by old software. There are many people who refuse to use modern versions of Excel. Because it's too annoying to use, and they use it all day long, so that's not acceptable.
Panzer04 11mo ago
The person who is going to bother adding stuff to a piece of software is almost certainly by definition a power-user. This means they want to add features they couldn't get anywhere else, and already know how to use the existing UI. Onboarding new users is just not their problem or something they care about - They are interested in their own utility, because they aren't getting paid to care about someone else's. It's not a "nerd" thing.

BinaryIgor 11mo ago

True; that's why we have companies with paid product who devote a lot of their time - arguably majority - to make the exact interfaces people want and understand:) it's a ton, a ton of difficult work, for which there is little to no incentive in the free software ecosystem

psunavy03 11mo ago

And this is precisely why desktop Linux has not knocked off Windows or MacOS.

bigfishrunning 11mo ago
And that's fine. Those users who want something that's not like desktop Linux have plenty of options.
- ghaff 11mo ago
  And increasingly it doesn't matter because they just live in a browser anyway.
  - thinkmassive 11mo ago
    Which also makes it easier than ever for more users to run Linux as a desktop OS :)
    - ghaff 11mo ago
      Absolutely. I still prefer MacOS/Mac hardware in some ways but running a browser on Linux on a Thinkpad or whatever works pretty well for a lot of purposes.
ripdog 11mo ago
I'd argue that's more because the average person has no interest in installing a new OS, or even any idea what an OS is. Most people just keep the default. When the default is Linux (say, the Steam Deck), most people just keep Linux.
valyala 11mo ago
Omarchy tries resolving this https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy
- a96 11mo ago

port11 11mo ago

After reading so many apologist comments dismissing the article's points with whataboutism, yours is the first comment that I think addresses the situation properly. As a developer, it's very hard to not mistake the forest for the trees, which is why I'm usually very happy to work with a good UX researcher.