On Monday 26 March 2007 06:18, Andrew Laignel wrote: ...
I'll try to explain some of the usability issues I have been having and some of my thinking. I run an Internet cafe, so I see and help people of all skill levels interacting with computers all day. If someone can do something the wrong way, they will. I see what people find hard, and difficult. It gives a good insight into how average people use a computer.
Note: Average people are not the only computer users.
Firstly, GUI vs CLI. CLI will never be 'easier' than a GUI. It may be quicker, it may be more resource efficient but it's not easier.
Note: Easier is word describing something relative to something else.
The benefit that a GUI environment brings is discoverability.
It is the very reason for existence of GUI.
In a GUI environment (provided its a well made one) you should be able to achieve your goals without knowing how to work the system prior to this. With a GUI you can sit down in front of pretty much any software on any platform and be able to work it out in a few minutes.
That is possible for relative simple tasks. Take as an example image processing. Simple home photo enhancement it possible to learn in few minutes, but if one has to produce professional looking image that will be included in presentation, than knowledge about photography and digital processing alone is subject of long studies.
It provides a visual metaphor (icons, windows) to make things easy. Since you are limited to clicking,
Text writing?
all options you need are on the screen and if you look, you can find them.
CLI's are entirely unintuitive, undiscoverable and not user friendly. The only way you'll know how to do anything in a CLI is by reading the manual first.
For the first time, even GUI is not that user friendly. I can tell that as I still remember my first contact with GUI. By that moment I was experienced computer user, and moving mouse was fun, but nothing was there to tell me about click, double click, click and drag, etc. I had to read the book first.
Also since you can have no idea of the scope of the abilities of the CLI you need to read the *entire* manual before you know all the options. Unlike a GUI which enables you to discover and learn as you go, a CLI is a brick wall to you, no matter how clever. Imagine going back in time and putting Archimedes in front of a GUI based system (say OSX (Greek edition :)) and then put him in front of a CLI on a Linux distro. I would bet large sums he would be whizzing about on OSX (or even KDE/Gnome) after a few hours, where with the CLI system he'd probably still be sitting at a blinking cursor.
I guess he'll be faster than I was, but he would look for manual too.
That's not to say CLI's are useless, or crap. They have many applications and are extremely useful (I use them, and scripts, a lot), but they are certainly not 'user friendly', and should never be presented to a user as such.
User friendly you use as "new user friendly", and the scope is discovering abilities of the software. ...
Again though, I do not think CLI systems are bad, only that they should be presented 'as well as' rather than 'instead of' a GUI. They are for advanced users who do the same tasks repeatedly, and are incredibly useful, but they are a pain in the neck to learn and use the first few times, even for someone who already has plenty of CLI experience. It's ridiculously easy to shoot yourself in the foot.
It is also ridiculously easy to hit the finger instead of nail, but hammer is usefull tool for what is designed. ...
Secondly, I do not feel that there is much advancement when it comes to GUI's in FOSS software. Improvements are always in added functionality and stability, very rarely is the GUI focused on as a 'lets redesign this to be as user friendly and discoverable as possible.' Generally any improvements in this department are only minor. I can understand why though, given the amount posted to Bugzilla.
Sigi answered about current trend in SUSE. I can add that FOSS software is created mostly by programmers. They know how to add functionality, but they have no interest and skills to research usability. BTW you can see that the same is happening with documentation. ...
I always link this article by ESR about CUPS when talking about usability - http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
The points he brings up are exactly what I mean. If I was to post that exact same article on a Linux forum I would be torn to shreds.
Exactly, but that is everywhere in the life. People listen carefully someone with authority in the field.
I think curing problems such as the ones he listed for CUPS are of paramount importance for FOSS to gain a foothold, yet progress in that direction still seems glacial. Usability is often seen as a joke, something to be despised, or even just a myth. The surprising thing is despite the glaring problems he pointed out, nobody else before him said anything. I am assuming that people had been putting up with CUPS for years before this point.
See above. Many people are aware that their word means little and they don't want to spend time writing something that will make them only trouble.
What I would like to see is an open forum (not necessarily a web one) for discussion on OSS usability issues. A set of recommendations could then be drawn up for the software (with GUI mockups, descriptions of functionality) that the developers could then see and take on board - essentially do the usability testing for them.
Recommendations are good idea, but they have to be usable too ;-) Developers have a lot to read and learn in their field, in order to stay current, so just put recommendations and let them find the way won't work. There must be someone that will have time to read recommendations and warn developers that certain functionality might be better applied in different way.
Anyway I certainly think that discussion never hurts. I am going to download Suse and try it out tonight. I'll try to share my thoughts about it tomorrow.
-- 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