On Saturday 24 March 2007 12:45, Andrew Laignel wrote:
So, anyway, after that longer-than-planned rant, my challenge is this: Find a place on the Internet that constructive criticism of Linux actually takes place where you can discuss caveats in the OS and talk about usability and what can be done to improve it in a calm and civilized manner. It's a harder task than you'd think. And if no such discussions take place how are any developers ever meant to know what the main concerns/problems that the general userbase is having?
I just think that the open sharing of ideas is just as important as the open sharing of code, yet it practically never happens. I'd also like to contribute my expertise (graphic design & usability) as would many other people yet even discussing the topic in public is pretty much prohibited.
Hey, I just reckon if you let (and encourage) people talk about what they would like, many good ideas may come of it.
Hi Andrew, the general problem of usability is simple if one looks only do certain task with whatever is on hand. The problem is arising if one tries to define usability for broad sample of tasks, tools and skills. There is no such thing as user friendly and usable without defined subject, as both terms cover all actions, all tools, and all skill levels. You can imagine that in all kind of actions you have such that have opposite goals, use tools that have to help us achieving such goals and are used with very different set of skills. Classic example is CLI vs. GUI. Myth: CLI is not user friendly, GUI is. This depends on task. When we want speed, to use as many CPU cycles for job that has to be done, what we use? As little other running tasks as possible which means among other things no GUI. If we have to wade trough zillion options in programs that we need, but we have no time to learn every function that we might need, than we need GUI that gives us menus and we can choose functions that we need. We still have to know what function will perform, but that is much lesser number of items to remember. Another example is CLI, alone. Myth: Long options in CLI are user friendly, short not. The reality here is the same as with GUI. If I know exactly what options to use, I use always short, but if I have to remember many that I don't use often, than long are easy to remeber. Both have the same idea about the number of options. Myth: To many options are not user friendly. Truth is again, depends on what you do. Some letter, from time to time doesn't need a load of options in one office suite writer program, it actually needs few descent templates and that is all, but for professional writer that doesn't cut. So, we can discuss usability, but tell us example, what are premises and what are the goals, and we can start. Just stating that in general Linux lacks usability features, or Windows safety, or some other OS something else is from the onset doomed to be pointless exchange of mythical stories without much logic in it. -- Regards, Rajko. http://en.opensuse.org/Portal -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help@opensuse.org