Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-ux (89 mails)

["Mohammad Bhuyan" <nuxser@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

It feels good to see how the opensuse community is taking the right
perspective on this topic of the usability of OpenSUSE. As a user who
is trying to make the switch (not the first time), I will share some
of my thoughts about my experience.

I am recently trying to make a complete switch to Linux (again and as
usual lots of hiccups). Every time I find it making a lots of progress
in application stability and GUI capabilities. As I am a software
engineer, I am also impressed about seeing the Kernel, X,  Desktop
Environment etc to morph into systems with designed architecture.

I am here not to make complains about buggy codes all around. This is
the easy part to fix. I want to emphasize on the part where "Desktop
Linux" is just a nightmare compared to "Just Works" Windows. I spent
the whole weekend on OpenSuSE Install and "make it work exercises" and
at the end it was a broken install beyond fixing (or another few days
of community email exchange to fix it).
If it were windows I am sure with about 50 clicks, 5-7 list box
selection and name/password typing of 30 min I would have had my box
ready.

Does it make Windows a better OS? NOPE!!. But It is a better "User
Product". Why not? It "Just Works". You press button, it flashes a
boring logo and then hola ..You with your mouse is ready to rule the
world. Adding/Removing apps are AMAZING. Applications have VERY
CONSISTENT look. So you most of the time know how to go about using
the app and what specific windows/icon/text/menu means even if it is a
application that you just installed to check out. You don't need to
know about "Dependency" as, if there is something that the app I am
trying to run requires then it will be taken care of instead of
bothering you.

I: May I have some water please?
You: This involves a dependency on Mug/Bottle. Do you want to have that too?

What the ...??!#!#$?

I hope you see what my point is. In my early days of software
engineering career, I was lucky to have a CEO who taught me a great
deal about the concept "Productization". I came to learn to "code for
end user". That's when I gave up showing "Initializing Inter process
Communication subsystem ..." message in application startup / splash
screen. They never care even if I am sending data to satellites, all
they are waiting is for that stupid app UI so that they can start
their work.

My point being, I see Linux distributions full of amazing apps that
are Code developed by programmers for programmers. Also many times the
codes are "working code" that are "not productized".

For example : Explain me how flashing 20/30 progress bar with
downlaoding../parsing... messages help while I am adding installation
source.
As a engineer I can see clearly its a "developer testing" code that
helps to see if download/parsing is going OK. How a end user will
benefit from this messages. Also that flashing is annoying enough to
nuke the programmers den.

I can go all day long pointing out what I think are sins of User
Experience commited in App UI, System customization, Desktop workflow,
but this email was more about to appreciate the steps taken to focus
on the hard part (getting a app that a user will like) than the easy
part of writing few 100 lines of code to do something in a annoying
way.

Regards,

Mohammad


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Mohammad Bhuyan
Software Engineer (R&D)
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