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This looks like it would have been accurate 7 years ago when it was published, but a lot has changed since then. I don't mean to say that OSS doesn't continue
by wheels 17y ago
This looks like it would have been accurate 7 years ago when it was published, but a lot has changed since then.
I don't mean to say that OSS doesn't continue to have usability issues, but certainly the role of usability folks within the major desktop projects has changed very significantly since then. Usability in OSS started gaining traction right around the time this was written and has in the meantime and it does show.
- jcromartie 17y agoOSS generally looks better than it did 7 years ago, but I don't see how true usability has improved too much. The major packages are a bit better, but the average project still suffers.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- dkarl 17y agoMassive improvements in usability have come about through bug fixes, increasing the completeness of applications, and better packaging of applications. I doubt the people doing that work thought of it as "usability" work, but it makes a huge difference. A lot of Linux's traditional usability problems have simply been missing functionality: missing GUI applications or missing features in major applications. Power users can often fill in the blanks by using extra utilities (transcoding a video file if their favorite video player won't play it, for example) but average users will be completely stymied, with the extra insult of spending ten minutes searching through the app's menus and preferences trying to find a feature that isn't there.