Making Things Easy Is Hard 980
paul.dunne writes "John Gruber of Daring Fireball has written
a long and considered riposte to
Eric Raymond's recent lament concerning the poor quality of user interfaces in free software.
The core of his argument is that 'developing software with
a good UI requires both aptitude and a lot of hard work.' One point that particularly struck me: according to Gruber, 'Unix nerds who care about usability are switching
to Mac OS X in droves'!"
IE Development is tough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:UI Development is tough. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:UI Development is tough. (Score:5, Funny)
Unix /Linux people are a crackup (Score:5, Interesting)
But they have the hardest time understanding simple concepts. That unfortunately reveals itself in the UI of many applications built on Unix/Linux. Of course a green screen doesnt help much.
At least Linux is a movement to shift the Unix world in the right direction, and to its credit Linux is getting better all the time.
Re:IE Development is tough. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a lot harder to have Bruce Perens to talk people into doing things his way, making them want to do it than it is for Steve Jobs to say "... or you're fired."
Re:Strength is a biggie (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should the Gnome project have to code around people who have 2mbyte graphics cards, people who moan that terminals arent responsive enough, people who want to run modern software on hardware that by all defininitions is well past it. By all means, enjoy what you can run, but dont moan when progress is being made and you cant take part in it.
You have to draw the line somewhere.
Re:IE Development is tough. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Windows or Linux?"
I thought about it for a bit, and said, "I know what you want to hear..." [Linux]
*pause*
"...but I'd have to say Windows, mostly because I like the interface of Homesite, and I've had some issues getting things working correctly in Linux in the past."
I said that I wanted to like Linux, but right now, Windows (and Homesite) let me do things faster.
Re:IE Development is tough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, I don't mean to dog on Jedit, but iirc Konqueror itself has plugins to do most of that. Of course, I'm perfectly happy on the command line, so I don't need all those plugins. But I see what you're saying. In my early days of development I preferred a fancy IDE, I even flirted with Borland C++ Builder for a little while. In my early days of web development I actually liked frontpage until I found Dreamweaver. ANd then one day, it was like, well it was, an epiphany, and I thought "Man, I waste more time managing my IDE than I do coding, and it really really sucks." And it came to pass that I determined that a small syntax-highlighting text editor that can load in less than 1 second is much more efficient than that big bloated mess that was Dreamweaver. Lo and behold I found Programmer's Notepad. And then I learned that Kwrite is the defualt text editor for KDevelop, and I no longer needed an IDE after all.
Granted it does take a little bit of extra steps adding a file to the source tree without a fancy wizard to build Makefile.am for me, but Makefile.am is not that complicated. And how much of your time do you really spend adding new files to the source tree? In all other ways that count (minus the class browser, but I never did get the hang of those) and IDE is slower than a simple fast text editor.
I understand there are still lots of people that do their coding in vim. And I understand why, finally. ;) But I genuinely like GUIs, so vim isn't the right fit for me.
Of course, now when I'm stuck with Windows I use cygwin for development, because I'm physically addicted to a light-weight syntax-highlighting text editor and a terminal window with a strong set of command line development tools.
Leaders, perfectionists and time... (Score:5, Insightful)
The coding has been great, the apps are progressing with amazing pace and people are really using the software for real world problems.
The big problem to this point, as the two articles point out, is that there have been no skilled UI designers or branding managers involved in the development process. The reason is simple - these people get paid good dollars doing private work. They're also particular personality types - generalists who are also perfectionists, big egos with big personal goals. I will humbly say that I'm part of this group and offer the following as some perspective to the community.
I've wanted to be involved in Linux but it's closed to creative idea types. The incentive that drives these kind of people when money isn't involved is the ability to see ideas come to life and until recently, only hard core programmers could have this opportunity. The comparison to Apple is almost perfect. Steve Jobs runs the company. He is the vision and he makes sure everything fits in right down to the amount of shine on the OK buttons. He's not a dictator though, in fact he relishes the input from his team so that he "can make the best user experience there is." Steve Jobs isn't saying this because of some marketing spiel, he truly believes it.
The culture of Linux is fundamentally opposed to allowing one visionary take any kind of control (with the exception of Linus perhaps). There will never be a competing level of usability in Linux as a whole until the environment that can support the likes of Steve Jobs exists.
I think the one shining light of late, as many people are noticing, is the Mozilla project. Somehow there was a leap of faith and the project asked Steven Garrity to take hold of the branding. Already, we've seen some huge improvements because he thinks like a visionary. For me, the proof is obvious through his writings and what has already been accomplished. This is the first project that I've felt I could offer something to and I think that's an important milestone that must be noted by the community.
You have to attract more of these people. There has to be a level of respect and opportunity for idea people from within the programmer community. While many will say that it's up to programmers to determine the destiny of Linux, that will mean that Linux will never compete in the sphere that real branded companies exist in. The types of people with vision are not overlords, or politicians, or slavemasters. They're people who can focus energy in a common cause and accelerate acceptance and usability. In time Linux will have to accept some kind of central direction, or even more limited distros so that there is the opportunity for certain personalities to step forward. I hope this happens sooner than later because I've been waiting a long time for the promise of an inexpensive, open and powerful computer. Apple always strives for those goals, but only Linux can ultimately attain them.
Re:Leaders, perfectionists and time... (Score:4, Interesting)
I disagree. The problem is that many creative people are used to the corporate way of "this is how it should be, do it". With OSS, you have to work with the programmers, not against them.
When a programmer says "no way", ask why. Either you convince him that it's really a good idea, or you change your design to fit the technical constraints. In the corporate world, an impossible webdesign ends up with the entire design used as a background image (been there, done that). In OSS, that would just result in the designer being replaced. Remember, that with OSS, the programmer is the boss, because he is the one who writes the code - or doesn't write it, if he doesn't like your ideas. Unlike the corporate world, where the boss is the one who tells the programmer to do what the designer says, even if it's impossible.
Oh, and remember... Programmers are users too. Advanced users, who can very well recognize an interface that is so dumbed down that it's useless for anyone above beginner level. That's one of the reason some of us ran away from Microsoft. Their interface may be easy for beginners, but when you get past the mouse state, it's terrible.
Simple Rules (Score:5, Insightful)
We know that when you get into a car, your real-time info is always in the same place, below the windshield, usually behind the steering mechanism (I know there are exceptions). Window controls are usually below the window. Parking brake is in the center console or at your feet. There are simple rules that allow a person to figure out how to drive almost any car.
Computers, on the other hand, have detailed rules that do not allow you to figure out the simple stuff. Mouse pointers usually look the same. Drop-down menus usually work in a similar manner. But only a few parts are always in the same location (window control widgets, start button, taskbar). Even those are often found in different locations.
We need simple rules that allow us to figure out the complex stuff. A simple example might be that we put things that can happen in the future at the top of the screen (like commonly used programs, start button, "My Computer" browser), and current or past stuff at the bottom (logs/graphs/gkrellm, running programs, time, weather). This way one could easily figure out where an action would be.
This probably needs some research first, because the rules should be intuitive, simple, and cross-cultural. But *we* need to define those rules instead of letting Microsoft change them every 3 years.
PS if anyone is interested in doing this research, send me a message - I'm looking for an interesting HCI project to work on!
Re:Simple Rules (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that what interfaces truly need are simple rules that can be quickly learned, from which one can intuit the more complex details.
If that's what they wanted, they would't lambast the 'vi' interface as the worst text editor experience. Vi is very simple, and quickly learned, and the simple rules build to make more complex ones (for example, if 'foo' is the command to move the cursor to a spot, then 'd' followed by 'foo' is the command to delete that section and shove it in the default buffer.) But people don't want to be able to intuit complex tasks from how the simpler ones work - becuase basically they don't want the 'tree' of learning that that approach creates. They want *all* tasks to be simple in a flat model with no heirarchy. They really hate it when foo doesn't make sense until after you've already learned bar. This is why they hate tools like vi, while programmers love it.
If you know you're going to be using a program a LOT, then the best UI is one that favors long-term application of your learning more so than short-term. If you're only going to be using it occasionally, then the best UI is the one that favors short-term learning more so than long-term application of your learning.
The problem is that short-term and long-term learning of a tool are often in conflict and cannot both be optimized. Hence you end up
with the big fights over what counts as a "good" user interface - where the programmers and the end users can't agree because they don't have the same needs.
That's why the ideal situation is to have open standards for file formats - then the same file can be used by a simple end-user tool and by a complex tool, and each side can use what they want and be happy.
Re:Professional quality level software (Score:5, Insightful)
Buttons lead no where, help didn't work or was unhelpful.. now making your buttons work as advertised and having at least some help when you press the help button (since someone had to put the help button there in the first place), isn't hard or too much to expect in my opinion
But it IS hard (Score:5, Insightful)
No offence, but you're missing the point exactly the same way Raymond did, for exactly the same reasons this article describes.
You can put as many buttons and help screens on as you like, and obviously they should do something if they're there. But the point is that making a program with good usability requires more than this. You have to have the right buttons and have helpful help text.
That is hard, and for now it seems it really is too much to expect, at least from open source projects. I use several of them every day, and have great respect for the development teams, but that doesn't change the fact that the help text in them usually doesn't (or, in some cases, isn't) and the old-fashioned, commercial, closed-source alternatives are years ahead in usability terms.
Re:Professional quality level software (Score:5, Insightful)
you obviousally never used it to set up a jetdirect or networked printer.
you have to fight to get a network printer installed. if it cant detect it you dont get it! Dammit! I had to fight the stupid thing by adding a printer on lpt1, the nedit that printer to be a network printer but not allow it to detect it or it will not let me have that printer.
ALL User interfaces need to default to expert mode and trust the user when it's automated systems fail. I am sick of software assuming that the user is a moron and never letting them get the job done if it cant do it for them.
Re:Professional quality level software (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's an example of the typical response to anyone who presents a valid, well written problem with linux software. "You tried to get feature-x working with distro-y? What an asshole, you should use distro z as it does this so much better.
That's what pisses me off so much about the linux community, most of the time when asking a question one will be derided for one's choice and then told that another distro is much better.
! news flash ! this doesn't help anyone!
I asked some well writen, polite questions in a linux forum about fedora core and rather than getting the answers, was I derided and astounded by the 'don't even think about it on that, get mandrake instead' or some other distro.
No-one seems to understand that a distro might be chosen for certain reasons and that changing is not an option, things have to be made made to work.
On old hardware i used slackware and that was fine. On my new hardware I've tried mandrake, and I couldn't get certain hardware running. I tried fedora and it worked fine. Hence my choice. Plus mandrake didn't come with some software that i wanted, which would have required a great deal of downloading which on a dialup account (that i couldn't get to work with under mandrake, but could under fedora), was unacceptable. Despite whether the parent is a troll or just some random asshat, the answers to fundamental questions about getting software to work are just not forthcoming from the community. Despite the hatred of windows software that most slashdotters seem to have none can show a piece of software that is easier to setup than it's windows equivilent.
Re:Professional quality level software (Score:4, Informative)
A lot more people than you think. Families have computer networks, and they sure do not want to buy a printer for each family member.
You buy cheap ink jet printers. Some prefer quality laser printers. One does not want to buy another laser just to avoid the hassle and one does expect things to just work. I have an old laser printer which connects via the parallel port that works just fine and I do not want to change it just for the heck of it, but I do expect it to become available on a network.
Re:Professional quality level software (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Professional quality level software (Score:4, Insightful)
A poorly-designed options panel is just as bad (maybe even worse, since you can't use text-manipulation commands) as an excessively long config file, and the design criteria for an options panel are significantly different than for an easily-maintainable config file.
Re:I wish I could agree (Score:4, Interesting)
Ahem...If spewing files willy nilly across the filesystem with no regard for what was already there can be called good. Or even a package.
The Mac OS X "package manager" is hideous. Give me RPMs and yum, or debs and apt, any day.
Yes, I know of what I speak...I've packaged quite a lot of stuff for Mac OS X, and will do a lot more packaging for Mac OS X in the future. There is are very good reasons why darwinports and fink exist and have chosen to use something other than Mac OS X pkg files for their distributions.
So...Pretty? Yes. Well-designed? Definitely not. Complete? Not by a mile.
Re:I wish I could agree (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, this is useless for command line tools, but Mac OS X is emphatically not a command line OS at heart. The
This also has the *HUGE* advantage that there's no such thing as 'uninstalling'. Because everything associated with an application goes in the bundle, deleting the app is all you need: no auxiliary files are left lying around to mystify you later on.
Then again, what do I know? RPM and apt messed up their package databases so often for me on Linux that these days I always install from source there: it often only takes one broken package, and it's always a complete ARSE to repair. Hah, I've just finished reinstalling fink after it decided to make approximately half of its X11 applications depend on its own X11 port and the other half depend on the system installed X11. According to the fink mailing list this was obviously my own fault. Though they wouldn't tell me any specifics on how this could possibly happen, just that it was nothing to do with them. Wonderful. Having both system-x11 and xfree86 installed simultaneously makes for an amazingly non-broken system. And no, you can't uninstall either. Give me application bundles any day.
(Not that fink is designed for being uninstalled at all. Not that it could resist the sheer unadulterated power of rm -rf. Man, that was satisfying.)
Re:I wish I could agree (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wish I could agree (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't need those things.
Linux on my iBook is faster and does what I want.
I even get better [sf.net] screensavers [jwz.org].
So I use Linux.
Re:I wish I could agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I never use X11, it's there, but what for. What exactly are you doing with your powerbook that makes you prefer YellowDog?
Last, OS X is not slow. Yes, Apple Mail is slower to launch than mutt ever has been. But Safari is way faster to startup than Mozilla was on Linux... Globally things are differents, but not slower.
Absolutely (Score:4, Informative)
This has certainly been my experience. My latest journal entry [slashdot.org] covers it quite nicely I think, but many of the geek folks I know including hard core UNIX users and scientists who have long been Windows users are shifting to OS X. After all, yes, UNIX is powerful and while performing certain tasks can be faster with the command line (indeed almost impossible without), for the most part, a good GUI can make things much more efficient. The nice thing about OS X is that your CLI is still there just waiting for you to invoke it allowing access to all that UNIXy goodness.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
But in a year or two I will need a new computer. My brother took the plunge at going back to a Mac a few years ago (during OS 9, before OS X). It was a nice little computer, but I planned to stick with Windows.
Then came OS X.
Not only does it look good (and the new things like expose have me drooling), but it's got unix under it. It runs GCC. It runs make. You don't need to run cygwin. It's got basically everything that I've come to love about Linux. Don't get me wrong, I'll never give up Linux, but for a main OS/platform, I'm going Mac when I get a new computer.
The biggest thing between OS X and Linux for my decision is the "cohesiveness". I like tinkering around in Linux and looking up how to get things to work. But my classes in college are taking up more and more of my time and so when I need to get a wireless adapter working, setup a remote printer, or anything else I'd like it to "just work". Maybe one or two little dialog boxes, but it's just nicer. I like that I can plug in hardware and it works without having to go hunt down a driver. I like that I can go buy a piece of software if I must. Other than Office, there really isn't much proprietary software I use anymore, but if I need a good web authoring package on Linux, I can find one or write one. I like the ability to go to Microcenter and buy Dreamweaver. There is also the games. There are not many games that I really want to play on the PC any more (consoles fill most of it) but the few I want usually come out on the Mac (and if they don't it's OK, I can borrow times on Windows).
I love Linux, but I don't have all sorts of time to fuss with things. That "just works" is something I really like the idea of. I have problems with things in Windows too, but they don't usually take as long. It's rare these days that I run into a Windows problem that takes me a LONG time that I wouldn't have with Linux.
None of that even mentions how I like Apple's designs and such. And the idea of a G5 processor makes me drool too.
Macs with OS X are the best of both worlds. The unix core and environment that I've come to love, with the ease of use and consistancy that something like Windows can show, plus that loverly Mac hardware.
Re:Absolutely ... for laptops (Score:5, Insightful)
However, laptops are a different story. Of all the people I know who've tried to run Linux on a laptop, none have managed to get more than 90-95% of the whole system working. Modems don't work, or screen drivers don't work, or hibernating to disc doesn't work, or networking doesn't come up after hibernation, or
I'm gonna switch to a Mac laptop when my current one reaches its end of life in the next few months. Being able to run Unix on a laptop, with vendor support for all those bits of hardware, is worth considerably more to me than the cost difference between Windows and Mac laptops.
Sure, there's a few Windows apps that I can't live without, including such abominations as MS Project, but I'm willing to bet that either Virtual PC on a Mac will let me run those apps or I'll find suitable replacements. In any case, the inconvenience will be more than covered by not having to run Windows.
Re:Absolutely ... for laptops (Score:4, Interesting)
And you are going to be damn happy. I just bought a powerbook 12". I had been using an Dell Inspiron 5000 for four years along with various Linux workstations. OS X is absolutely unbelievable.
I love my powerbook. And now, when I look at how much it really cost me to make my workstation, I am chagrined to find I am almost at the cost of equivalent PowerMacs.
Oh, and my powerbook was the same as an equivalently featured Dell. The Apple hardware isn't as expensive as it used to be. You might be surprised to find your laptop not costing as much as you would expect.
Re:Absolutely (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW, I'm the Unix nerd/scientific programming type. Just go to any scientific conference these days and see all the powerbooks. It's a beautiful thing.
I'm one of those people. (Score:5, Interesting)
People can make fun of me all they want, but I really think the nicer look and feel in MacOS X makes me a lot happier and more productive. When you stare at a screen all day, it really should be the best-looking screen money can buy.
And, of course, it's just super nice to be compatible with the rest of the business world, with Office, without feeling you've totally sold out to MS. In terms of visual attractiveness, there's just no contest between MacOS X Office and the rather drab Office XP.
It's too bad discriminating Unix-lovers isn't a bigger market. My Apple stock investment, which I made because I thought a lot of people would join me in the Mac world, pushing up demand, has actually been saved by the iPod.
D
Re:I'm one of those people. (Score:4, Informative)
When the interface gets in my way by accidentially clicking a gadget or some dumbass tooltip following the mouse around, I get irritated. I'm here to work within my applications, not marvel at how flexible the interface is.
Man, speaking of tooltips...
I open a terminal when I'm doing c++ work, and I command-line my way around the project directory all over the place, 4-5 terminals open all at once, whatever, right? I'm sure I'm not the only one. I use Kwrite for my editor, so I frequently type something like "kwrite src/fuckyou.h &". I also frequently type something in kwrite, save, and then, check this out.
Then I move the mouse pointer all the way to the bottom of the screen, click the terminal, and start typing in the terminal. Now, what's wrong with this?
Nothing, tra-la-la?
A fucking tooltip appears and snatches the first character of input from me!!! So now I've typed "ake" or "/configure" or "write src/fuckyou.cpp &". Or even just "s"!
Irritating as hell. (KDE, just because I've failed to mention it so far)
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I've switched from MacOS X to BSD, and I'm much happier. I still maintain my wife's MacOS X box, and basically the number of hassles with both machines is about the same. They're just different kinds of hassles.
On the mac, you want to connect and share files, but today, for some mysterious reason, the other computer's pretty little icon doesn't pop up, and you don't know why. On BSD, the hassle is that you have to read a badly written man page to get it set up the first time.
On a mac,the hassle was that I didn't like Apple's window manager, and there weren't any good alternatives. On BSD, I get my choice of window managers, but the hassle is figuring out the format of the rc file for the one I choose to use.
On a mac, the hassle is that a lot of the nice open-source software I want to use hasn't ever been ported. On BSD, the hassle is that there isn't any open-source replacement for certain pieces of proprietary software.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
I am but a lowly Windows CAD guy, but that comment strikes me as very insightful. Many CAD programs are so littered with cryptic graphic GUI buttons and flyouts and sub-sub menu items that navigating them is a nightmare. Keyboard shortcuts (or even better, programmable "other hand" input devices) for the most-used commands is the way to go.
Uh.. (Score:5, Funny)
chicks dig console...
Re:Uh.. (Score:5, Funny)
Edit /etc/ttys. Uncomment the "/usr/libexec/getty" line, comment out the "/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app" one. Hasta la vista, Aqua [oreilly.com].
Check the attitude at the door. I worked with Solaris, SCO Unix, FreeBSD and Linux. Just because someone wants a nice environment doesn't make them a wannabee, it's called 'progress'. Same reason we don't sleep in caves anymore.
Now, if you want to talk about what chicks really dig, you should check out the rack of SUN equipment under my bed. *fonz-style-thumbs-up*
Disagreement (Score:4, Insightful)
To quote the article:
Remember the old open source magic formula -- that one could make money giving away software by selling "services and support"? That hasn't happened -- in terms of producing well-designed end user software -- and it's no wonder why.
Just repeat after yourself: "There is no such thing as redhat, there is no such thing as Redhat."
True, Redhat *sells* boxes of software. But what you're getting for your money is the support that comes with it. Right?
This isn't to say desktop Linux isn't growing in use. It is, and will continue to. But it's growing at the bottom end of the market -- cheap $400 computers from Wal-Mart. That's a market where software usability is not a key feature.
Oh really? So tell me, is Walmart a store that techies currently shop? Cheap $400 computers *are* meant for the non-technical type that wants the cheapest computer they can possibly afford. Typically, people who use their computer more tend to want something a little better. Either that, or build it themselves.
UI development is the hard part. And it's not the last step, it's the first step. In my estimation, the difference between.
He might be talking about making a desktop for linux, but he's missing the big picture. Before there was Desktop Linux, there was the kernel itself. Function before style.
Re:Disagreement (Score:3, Interesting)
now with mass marketing of Computers...form MUST come first, and not be an after thought.
UI design is about function too (Score:5, Insightful)
Function before style.
Just a minute. Don't for an instant believe that user interface design is just about style - pretty colours and slick marketing - because it's not. It's just as much about function and utility as any other aspect of software design. It really does belong more in the engineering department than the art department or marketing.
I don't deny that the software foundations needed to be laid beforehand, but he's right on the money when he says that UI development is the hard part.
I'll admit my bias, because I am a professional user interface designer. But I tell you, I'm starting to long to get back to software development, where I have my roots. It's a purer and simpler world.
Re:UI design is about function too (Score:4, Insightful)
These days UI design seems to come directly from marketing department - functionality?! who cares as long as it looks "k3w1!"
Re:UI design is about function too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:UI design is about function too (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the reason UI is so bad. Think of the order you develop a product. At what point do you write the help?
The correct answer is 'first'. If you write the manual first, then make the software work the way that the manual says, you'll have a much more usable product than if the manual is playing catch-up with the application.
Re:Disagreement (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but they are so focussed on price that they don't realize that they are getting ripped-off (to a degree). Which really was the point of ESR's original rant. Linux is BROKEN, It's usability failures makes it unusable (which only makes sense).
Linux hasn't just failed to produce a system that Aunt Tillie can use - it has failed to produce a system that ERIC S. RAYMOND can use! That is a pretty spectacular failure.
Before there was Desktop Linux, there was the kernel itself. Function before style
The failure in understanding that makes you think this statement is relevant is the problem that ESR was complaining about in his original rant. Usability IS function NOT style. To the degree that open-source developers THINK that it is merely "style" they will just throw some "style" at their project and think they have done something worthwhile when they have probably only made crappy software worse.
What is the purpose (or function) of a kernel, or more too the point, a computer itself? It is a TOOL that humans use to accomplish tasks with. If the tool is nearly unusable it's NOT functional. A rock can drive nails but a hammer with it's better "usability" and "user interface" (a handle, decent balance, etc.) is not more stylish - it is more functional. For Aunt Tillie, heck for ESR himself, the same distinction is valid between CUPS printing and Windows printing. CUPS can connect to a shared printer, but windows is more FUNCTIONAL.
Open source developers demand and create excellent usability in those situations where THEY are in fact the users - programming languages, development tools, server software - the things that make Open Source tools superior are in a real way their superior "usability" though we don't think of it that way.
what is the point? what is it that we as developers DO? We are the tool makers. Seeing computers as tools just to write software as an end unto itself is a bit masturbatory. The software we write for end users to preform their tasks should be characterized by the same superiority in the same terms, USABILITY, that we demand from the tools we use for OUR tasks.
Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Interesting)
Pointy flashy clicky things just distract from getting real work done.
Re:Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Usable for me is being able to read the man page once, write a script to automate it, and never have to look at the damn thing again
Cool, glad things are working out for you, but sadly, not everyone defines 'usable' in the same way. Sometimes 'pointy flashy clicky things' can get a one-time or rarely-performed task done quickly. Sometimes the ability to quickly do one rare task through a GUI without having to reference a bunch of docs is just as important as the ability to repeat the same task quickly through a script or CLI.
Re:Different strokes for different folks (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. Depending on interest and frequency, I'd almost say "all of the above". Sometimes I want a "Wizard" A to Z and we're done, sometimes I want a basic interface, sometimes and advanced, and sometimes a CLI. In each case, more options and flexibility, less intuitive. I hate spending ages understanding something I'll have 99% forgotten when I got to do it again in a year.
Kjella
Re:Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno... I hear what you're saying, and the CLI gives you the power to do exactly what you want---er, tell the thing to do...
But I got fed up about the Nth time I had to figure out
...when all I really wanted to do was burn a bunch of files to a CD-RW. Would drag-and-drop really be harder or less powerful or more inconvenient to use than the command line?
Re:Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Your command is a nice example of what can be done perfectly by a little scripting. Put it in a shell script and insert the files to be burned as paramter. Voila you have a simple yet powerful command to burn files. You could put that command in numerous shell scripts, cron jobs etc. You can't do that easily with shemes that require user-interaction.
Unfortunately the Linux desktop tends to move toward that dichotomy, with KDE being nice to the eyes and to the beginners and excluding methods of automating. I prefer shemes of small and powerful tools that can be invoked by command line if you like to and GUI frontends that can be used by beginners to control these commands. This is the way to do it. Nobody gets hurt. Everyone is happy. Sure it means more work to encapsulate the different jobs. But this is what the article is about.
Re:Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Familiarity breeds contempt. I'm guessing that you used a "pointy flashy clicky" web browser to post that message, but given that you're reading Slashdot I can accept the point that it's distracting you from getting real work done.
More seriously, though, there are plenty of tasks that are complicated enough that they can't be scripted. My guess is that you didn't rely on a script to post your comment to /., and you probably don't rely on one when you compose email, draw pictures, play music, or organize your pr0n collection. Programs that let you do those kinds of things inherently require a more or less complicated UI, and that means that somebody needs to design that UI, hopefully so that it's easy to use. You can't ignore the effort that went into designing those programs' UIs just because you're so familiar with them that you've stoped noticing. To the contrary- the ability to use those programs so easily that you forget about their UI is evidence that it's well designed.
Re:Different strokes for different folks (Score:4, Insightful)
The pointy clickiness of the gui based client only slows down those who are lightning fast with the 3270 based app, and average call handling times (the only thing that really matters to management) has gone up as a result.
So much for gui being better than text based apps.
Which type of easy! (Score:4, Funny)
First people have to know what they want in order to get it. We can't solve stupidity and/or ignorance can we?
Yawn... same old argument (Score:3, Informative)
Sound familiar? It's the same argument against any kind of Open Source, only this time it's UI design that's somehow impossible to do without a big corporation (or "cathedral" if you will). Someone better tell the KDE people.
I don't think that ESR ever said UI design was really easy to do or a last-minute add-on, just that it needs to be done, not overlooked.
Re:Yawn... same old argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell them what? That OS X beats a shoddy imitation of MS Windows hands down?
"just that it needs to be done, not overlooked."
Well, the point is that it's *not* being done. On this Gruber and Raymond are agreed. The question is, why not?
Re:Yawn... same old argument (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, I just get really sick of shit like that being said. I've always been one for, "Use whatever works." and as such have been platform/program/desktop environment/window manager/OS agnostic for a long time.
Even if KDE is a "shoddy imitation of MS Windows" at least it "imitated" the "up one directory" button unlike certain other frustrating as hell file managers.
My girlfriend uses OS X and she loves it. I use KDE and I've been very, very happy with it for months. They both work. They both work well. For what I do, KDE is great.
I just think it's really poor taste to shit all over other people's hard work just because you're an elitist asshat. I *like* OS X, but I think it's very, very overrated. OS X is far from the holy grail of the UI too, just check google for the number of Mac users that loathe the new finder.
It's good and it has people who like it but come on... you can't make a "perfect" UI any more than you can make a "perfect" dinner or a "perfect" book.
The fact that you got modded "insightful" is sad.
Re:Yawn... same old argument (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why the core of linux is rock-solid. Its computer geeks doing what computer geeks love. But when you get to areas where computer geeks are out of there element, there tends to be more lackluster results.
Re:Yawn... same old argument (Score:4, Insightful)
What OS X and Windows do is have one company providing direction and saying "these are our standards and interfaces, at the very least you can rely on things being done THIS way", which helps usability and development massively. Why is it that with Windows you can almost always (barring certain issues related to the software) install any piece of off-the-shelf recent software without hassle on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and 2003? Obviously there are exceptions, but they are just that -- exceptions. It happens more often than not that you can do this with Windows. Why then, in 2004 are there still problems getting software "out of the box" to run consistently with all of the Linux distributions? Case in point: our product uses InstallShield to do installations for Windows and Linux. On Windows, no problems getting the installer to run. On Linux, the installer works for most of our supported distributions without a problem, but on one distro (Redhat EE 3.0), you have to do "export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5" or else the installer doesn't work. This is some sort of inconsistency with libraries or something, isn't it? Why do problems like that still exist?
Elegance In General Is Hard (Score:5, Interesting)
The simplest... (Score:5, Interesting)
--Robert Fripp
OSS is not _that bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I admire Daring Fireball in all of it's pedantic glory. Maybe he is just trolling for April 1st.
OSS software is not always easy to use - there are plenty of OSS developers and users who understand this constant plight. This article doesn't seem to recognize that. Gruber always paints with a broad brush and it is hard not to be offended by what he is saying and implying in this article.
Good user interfaces result from long, hard work, by talented developers and designers.
Check this Gruber - Gnome, KDE, Easy Software (CUPS), Freedesktop, Mozilla, Ximian, Trolltech, Activestate, IBM, Sun, Redhat, SuSE, Novell, Mandrake, Debian, Open Office, Apple, and on and on, ALL have talented developers and designers on board. Some are paid, many are not. All of them write, package, repackage, extend, design, evolve, sell services around or just use OSS software. Even if the print setup on Alan Cox computer was too difficult for anyone, it was written by a talented developer and probably looked over by a talented designer somewhere later. It just didn't work this time around. So we move on. We re-examine it. I promise you we didn't need Alan Cox to tell us it needs improvement. Alan Cox is not OSS. Alan Cox problems do not reflect everyone's problems. Certainly not my co-worker who's CUPS install does autodiscover. It even connected to my amazing Apple Powerbook's shared printers running off... CUPS.
There are plenty of failures in OSS usablity. They are being fixed fast (release). The fast (release) is complimented by the fast (performance) of Linux. I use OS X everyday, don't tell me it is more responsive than Linux and it's OSS on equal hardware. You don't have enough proof to refute mine, I don't have enough proof to disprove yours. OSS is also more than just cheap software, it's cheap software that runs on cheap hardware (more on this below). And it will be good. I think it's good right now. Novell and IBM thinks it's so good right now they are rolling it out, company wide.
Talented programmers who work long full-time hours crafting software need to be paid. That means selling software. Remember the old open source magic formula - that one could make money giving away software by selling services and support? That hasn't happened - in terms of producing well-designed end user software - and it's no wonder why....
For example, look at how much Mac OS X has improved in the last three years alone. Even if desktop Linux is improving - and I do think it is - it's improving at a much slower pace than Mac OS X....
Mac OS X printing implementation was built on much of the same software as Alan Cox Fedora install. This is the panacea of the OSS business model - quality free (libre) disparate software, glued together by intelligent programmers. Further I don't understand Gruber's point of view - Apple is making money off OSS and the developers are getting paid. The support and services might be in the form of support software which may not be what the kind of support he was thinking of... but it's still services and support.
This isn't to say desktop Linux isn't growing in use. It is, and will continue to. But it's growing at the bottom end of the market - cheap $400 computers from Wal-Mart. That's a market where software usability is not a key feature.
I'm sorry but Gruber is wrong. It is a key feature in that market - according to Linux developers. Maybe not Apple developers and maybe not Microsoft developers. However, to many [kde.org], many [gnome.org], many [freestandards.org] OSS developers, usability importance doesn't scale with price. That's a disgusting, exclusive statement by Gruber.
Posted here too [dustymatthews.com]Re:OSS is not _that bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they're not. Apple is making money off the closed source development they are doing. The OSS part of their product(s) is/are, from a market perspective, insignificant and irrelevant. People don't buy Macs because of Darwin or khtml, they buy it because of Aqua, Quartz, Microsoft Office and Photoshop. The best OSS is doing, is *saving* Apple some money, but that is a different thing to *making* Apple some money. The guts of OS X could have come from NT, BeOS or Solaris, and it would make no difference.
One could possibly argue that if Apple were to Open Source all of OS X, then the only revenue stream that would suffer an immediate serious impact would be OS upgrades (and given the zealous devotion of the average Apple customer, even that might not suffer a huge impact).
However, you'd be hard pressed to argue that inevitable OSS ports to other platforms like x86 - as half-arsed as they would probably be compared to the "real thing" - not to mention the booming market of PPC clones running "OpenOS X" - wouldn't have a significant negative impact on Apple's bottom line. Not only in lost sales, either, but also from the less quantifiable aspects of the market, like brand name recognition and product reputation.
Personally, I can't think of any OSS that approaches OS X - or even Windows, for that matter - in terms of overall UI consistency, polish, elegance and completeness. Redhat and Suse have probably come closest with their distributions, but both still have the too-many-cooks syndrome of feeling like a bunch of thrown-together applications, rather than a single product.
Re:OSS is not _that bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OSS is not _that bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the point. The raw install is barely usable, put a thoughtful, well designed interface on it and the whole complexion changes. Gruber argues that to get such an interface you have to have paid, professional developers on the case in order to deliver that genuine usability in a reasonable amount of time. I tend to agree with him. The points you make don't demolish his argument, they seem to strengthen it.
Re:OSS is not _that bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gruber's point was that you can't just slap a GUI onto existing code and make it usable; you have to design usability into the entire product from the start.
In that respect, he is wrong. The MacOSX printing proves that he is wrong. MacOSX uses the same CUPS core that Fedora uses, but it has a better GUI slapped on top. The GUI was slapped on top after CUPS had been written.
Gruber is an asshole in many ways, and this latest rant just confirms more of the same. He's quick to insult Linux users, demean the efforts of many people, and claim that Linux can't ever meet the standards of paid UI designers.
Then he rants on how OSS can never deliver the brilliant GUI designs of MacOSX and Windows. Well dream on, Gruber. Here's a summary of Gruber and "his ilk" over the past decade.
I'll be first in line to watch Gruber and "his ilk" eat humble pie in 2010.
very long rant (Score:4, Interesting)
This one is funny.
Eric S. Raymond -- the renowned Linux/Open Source evangelist/essayist -- couldn't figure out how to connect to a shared printer. So he wrote an essay describing the problem [catb.org] (the UI for printer configuration on his Linux system is horrible) and proposing a solution (open source developers should do a better job with UI design). Raymond wrote:
(Side note: parallel port? What year is it in the Raymond household?)
Raymond's description and criticism of the usability problems he encountered trying to achieve this are accurate and apt. The gist of it is that what seemed like the obvious way to go about the task was in fact completely wrong, and worse, there was no indication from the system that he wasn't on the right track.
This setup alone is sort of funny -- Linux Advocate Struggles to Configure Printer -- ha-ha. Even funnier considering past statements from Raymond regarding Linux-vs.-Windows usability; e.g. the forward for the book "Everyday Linux", wherein he wrote [everydaylinux.com]:
I mean, come on, it's funny that the guy who wrote that couldn't connect to a shared printer.
But it's when Raymond begins proposing "solutions" to the problem -- where "the problem" is the larger issue of open source software usability in general, not just the specific case of CUPS printer configuration -- that things get hilarious.
In his follow-up article [catb.org], Raymond summarizes his proposal thusly:
Sounds good, on the surface. And indeed, most of the follow-up article is devoted to the congratulatory email Raymond received in response to part one:
I agree that this is an interesti
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Hits the nail on the head (Score:5, Informative)
What's GUI-RELATED you ask? Well, consider a simple file copy utility that runs from the command line. When you run it, you give it the arguments on the command line and off it goes. If you want to use the same arguments twice you make a shell script or an alias - the file copy utility DOES NOT WORRY about persistent arguments.
OK, now we make a GUI file copy utility. Oh, you'd like to use the same arguments again. OK, that's reasonable, let's make a place to store those. Oops, now we need a way to manage them (create, edit, delete - what about concurrent access?). Hey, wait, this is Mac OS - you know, the path to a volume can change when it gets unmounted and remounted. Are you doing the right thing to specify the VOLUME the user wanted and not just a dead path? Oh, what about when the path no longer exists - should we fail, create it silently, pop up a dialog saying it's missing and let the user create it...
John Gruber is dead on the money - you can't just wrap a GUI around a CLI and expect things to be easy to use. There's a whole big layer of foundation code under the GUI that needs to be created to make things work the right way.
Well he's right about UNIX geeks - MacOS X (Score:4, Informative)
For the hard core CLI stuff (such as tcpdump, etc) I can always open up a terminal, and for the part of me that goes "ooooh" at shiny objects, I can make the terminal windows transparent.
I'm particularly impressed at the ease of configuration of network devices and connections in OS X vs. WinXP.
Any way, add me to the list of UNIX geeks that is going to OS X. I'm not replacing my OpenBSD boxen, but I am trying to replace my work-issued WinXP laptop and my wife is totally willing to switch out her Win98SE box for a Mac (which is great, because she was dead-set against Linux for her desktop OS).
Oh, did I mention that it's 10 times easier to create a presentation in Keynote than in PowerPoint, and Keynote looks better to boot! For example, I created a 36 slide presentation immediately after installing Keynote, with barely a hitch and never cracking open the user manual. It took me 1 hour yesterday to modify two build slides in PowerPoint.
Keynote and Apple UI Design (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I had to give this talk at our student center, and so I obviously wasn't going to lug my desktop PC along, even though it is an SFF. I own a used Powerbook G4, which I've been lovin' because of my ability (through Fink) to get the latest Linux necessities but still have access to the wealth of proprietary software I enjoy using (Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, etc.)
I was planning on using OpenOffice to make the presentation, but at that point OOo wasn't running too easily on OS X, and it occasionally crashed on me. I didn't feel like showing off a piece of OSS that crashed constantly as a way of convincing newbs. So I went to the local educational discount store and picked up a copy of Keynote, expecting Powerpoint aquafied.
WOA, was I wrong. This program, with only a few minor exceptions, should be the UI design BIBLE practically. Within an hour of playing I had everything I needed to make a really slick presentation. When you move elements around they click into place, and INTELLIGENT alignment bars appear to help you align other elements with existing ones. The templates are smart rather than inhibitive, and they are actually beautiful designed. The fonts are crisp and clear and perfectly antialiased, the transitions are smooth and (sometimes) 3D accelerated, the support for Quicktime movie files and MP3s is superb. Not only that, but after my talk, I was able to export the presentation to a Quicktime file and burn it to a CD, all without a hitch.
This was all so slick that it got me into trouble. Someone at the lecture asked, "Was this presentation made with OpenOffice, because it's really cool..." and I had to tell him that I used Apple Keynote, with a collective sigh from the room.
I said, "Don't worry, OO is getting there." Yea, right. I was lying just to make everyone feel better. OO will never get there. Keynote is like an entirely different way of thinking. I wouldn't even call them the same kind of tool in this case. Word processors are word processors, but there are presentation programs and then there is Keynote.
---
THERE'S STILL HOPE...
---
That's not to say Linux is doomed on the desktop. I'm a Linux desktop user. But developers definitely need to take lessons from some of these proprietary gems. Just a short list of applications whose UI principles I'd like to see utilized in the Linux desktop world:
o MS Office v. X - has many differences in UI design versus MS Office for Windows, particularly the formatting pane.
o Macromedia Dreamweaver - still the most efficient way to build websites within a graphical environment, and it's because the GUI is smartly designed.
o Watson - if you run OS X, check it out. Swiss-army-knife search tool, and to be fair check out the Windows "sorta-equivalent", Copernic.
o Tune Up Utilities 2003 for Windows - has a wonderful "integrator" program with a great UI, should be imitated for any collection of tools like a control panel.
o Winamp - huh what? Yes. A media player that doesn't imitate iTunes (like Rhytmbox), but also includes "media library" functionality and mp3/aac/ogg ripping, and is Winamp skinnable. So either improvements to xmms or something altogether new. I, for one, hate iTunes and its design.
o DVD Shrink - This is a good example of one of those "one-function" programs that just lets you see all the options and click "go" and everything works. acidrip and dvd::rip both have this sort of "single use tool" aspect to them, but their GUIs are still just wrappers to cli tools, such
Some mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
One is that by imitation one is stuck in underachievement. Not so, everyone learns by imitation, even the few ones who rise to geniality.
Other is that the GNU/Linux desktop is not maturing as fast as proprietary ones. This has not been my experience. Sure MS Windows has matured a lot since MS Windows 1, but that was a long time ago; most interface improvements came in the MS Windows 3.11 to 4.0 (AKA 95), and since them it has basically stagnated. Mac OS X was a huge improvement in both polish and underpinnings from Mac OS 9, but not in usability. On the other hand, Gnome 2.6 for instance is so much better than Gnome 1.4, and continues to improve.
Finally, he assumes there are no companies behing desktop GNU/Linux. Hasn't him ever heard of Novell, IBM, Sun, HP and their backing Gnome, contributing usability studies, guidelines and improvement to it, and taking part in the Gnome Foundation?
I guess KDE is not much behind if at all.
BOTH of them get it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why Sun's Java Desktop System (which I've been using this week) is so far the easiest Linux desktop I have seen so far. There's one driving motivation behind it - whatever Sun wants. There's little "but I prefer chromed widgets" from one developer. Nope. Sun says "make this easy to use," and it gets done.
I mean, who gives a damn about GNOME vs. KDE? What Linux needs are developers who follow a singular mission (or, rather, several singular missions, but not a mission for every developer!). I'm sure there were a lot of blacks in America who hated riding in the back of the bus, but until the Civil Rights Movement, there wasn't a cohesive strategy for every indivdual to work towards...
Not just GUI design (Score:5, Insightful)
Setting aside the silliness of fashion, elegant designs (lamps, home furnishings, clothes...) generally cost more than their K-mart alternatives. This is very true in architecture (which is probably the closest physical analogy to SW interfaces. There are builders tossing up 3600 sq ft barns for $140/sq ft. The damn houses have crummy flow, light switches in the wrong place, plumbing running down exterior walls so pipes freeze, messed up rooflines etc. It takes time, talent and forethought to design something well.
Since much of open source is developed to satisfy the intellectual/academic interests of the development team, they often forget that someone else may want to play with their toys. I am sure there are many exceptions to this and these are generalizations, but that's my 3 cents
A good UI does not a printer share make. (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, I directed my browser to CUPS and setup that printer on my Debian Powerbook, with no problems. Then I did it again in my Mac-on-Linux.
The problem isn't interface...its the inability of some people to understand how computers work. And pretty UI's don't fix that.
I might give Mac a try (Score:3)
Making it easy? (Score:5, Funny)
Software isn't meant to be productive. It's meant to help people get a laugh at the expense of others.
Hard Simplicity (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be a HyperCard wizzard, a FileMaker consultant, and an AppleScript guru, but lately the limitation of these tools is really chafing against me. I've found it necessary to learn C. Of course I've tried to learn Cocoa and GnuStep but it's not nearly as easy as what I'm able to whip up with the kindergarten graphical tools. But now I've started really understanding the elegance of pipes and the simple syntax of C and the GUI things are really getting on my nerves.
There are still many things that I hate with the experiments that I've played with Linux. I despise all of the confusion over the package managers and libraries (I just don't understand it). And I get frustrated by the way one handles memory management in C (though I do understand why one do it; it's just like filling out my taxes each year... frustratingly monotonous).
I know that the way this topic started off there will probably be a slew of flame wars starting from people who feel that the integrity of Linux and BSD has been insulted by saying that Mac OS X is easier. I'm not interested in those flame wars but if there are any lessons that can be learned from each camp, there could be a really good symbiosis that comes from Linux users wanting more simplicity and Mac users wanting more power.
Article author needs a swift kick (Score:5, Insightful)
(Side note: parallel port? What year is it in the Raymond household?)
You know, we keep complaining about "attitude" taken by some of our open source comrades, and this is precisely the kind of crap we don't need being written. I still have a cd-rom drive that connects to a special connector placed onto an old ISA sound blaster that I also still have. It isn't actually connected, but the wonder of it is that LINUX STILL SUPPORTS IT.
People who come off with this "only use the latest" attitude really annoy me. A LaserJet 6MP is a very respectable printer. Parallel ports are still fast and reliable. Not everybody feels the need to upgrade to USB 2.0 printers just because that is "trendy". People like me, who take good care of their equipment, tend to have legacy items that ARE STILL PERFECTLY GOOD lying around. And furthermore WE LIKE LINUX **BECAUSE** of its EXCELLENT support of older hardware (although parallel port printers aren't exactly old).
Debate is a good thing at any venue, but this sort of Red Herring / Ad Hominem attack is *NOT* constructive and makes us look like a bunch of infighting children.
Re:Article author needs a swift kick (Score:4, Funny)
Exactly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Example: The U.S. military.
How many of you pimply-faced 16 year olds ever heard of the Kermit file transfer protocol? It was invented in '81 as a highly reliable way to send data without error. The U.S. military still uses this protocol to send data over *110 BPS* (yes, that's right, 110 bits per second) connections in highly critical applications because it is absolutely bulletproof.
They could just as easily trash all that stuff and use some new-fangled suitcase-sized satellite terminal to transfer the same data at several MBPS. But what happens when there's a glitch in the system, or the system goes down? Congrats, the Patriot missiles don't fire, and a nuke just landed on your mom's house because our government went for eye candy rather than predictability reliability.
There are countless other examples of this in the military. How about the B-52 bomber? It's been in constant use since the *50s* (with numerous upgrades of course). Ever once in a while I hear some ignorant person wonder why we don't scrap the B-52. The answer is that it does a job that no other bomber can do, and does it well, and most importantly, it does it *reliably*. It's a *proven* technology. There's no *benefit* to trying to build a new bomber to take its place. It has been constantly refined over the years, and its limitations and abilities are well-known.
You can easily see how this applies to the subject at hand. RS-232, parallel ports, etc are all proven technologies that have lasted for decades and performed their jobs reliably and predictably. Exactly what's the rush to swap over to some brand spankin new technology just because it's new?
Sure, USB 2.0 is a nice standard. Great. But don't expect everyone to ditch what they've got just because something new shows up on the block.
These must be the same people who spend thousands of dollars doing "case mods" and installing neon lights and other useless things. The same people who, in another life, would spend half their life in the mall buying new clothes because their old clothes are "SO five minutes ago".
Nice work (Score:4, Insightful)
"The UI really isn't up to standard. If you worked more on it Linux would be great."
"Developing UI is hard. Let's not bother."
Nice riposte there. The ultimate excuse for not achieving the single most important thing in creating a total Linux revolution. The reason Bill Gates is in every home on every desktop. Here it is:
"It's too hard."
Bill Gates has won.
Arrogance (Score:4, Insightful)
"parallel port? What year is it in the Raymond household?"
If you want your OS to succeed, then someone is going to work on usability for all facets of it, glamorous or not.
Productivity... how much is myth? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see a lot of comments glowing with praise for the legendary "productivity boost" you get from using a Macintosh. But how much of this is just hype? I'm not disputing that in several aspects MacOS is well in the lead; file browsing, interface consistency, intelligent dialogs, auto discovery, and so on. But how much of that really adds to your productivity? My belief is, not a whole lot.
Hear me out. My typical use of the computer involves e-mail and word processing. I don't spend a whole lot of time reorganising my files. If the typical day involves 2 hours writing documents, 2 hours reading/writing e-mails, 15 minutes reorganising my files, and 4 hours doing non-computer things like meetings, then even if the Finder made me twice as productive when reorganising my files that's only 7 minutes. I waste more time than that saying hello to everybody each morning.
I can anticipate the first round of angry denials. "But it's not just the Finder; the Aqua interface and Human Interface Guidelines makes you N% more productive for [intangible reason]". Ok, perhaps that's true, but the majority of my time writing documents and mails is spent thinking. I don't struggle with the interface. I click "New Message" then I spend 10 minutes writing then I click "Send". I click "New Document" then I spend 2 hours writing then I click "Save".
The second round of angry denials will probably be "But MacOS makes it easier to add hardware because once I installed [Foo Device] on Linux and it took me 16 days and cost me $1 kajillion dollars in lost productivity". Well I rarely change my hardware, so while I can agree that Microsoft and Apple make it easier to install new hardware than in Linux, it's not as if that really affects me either.
My point is that you spend most of your time inside applications; not the Finder and not the hardware installation wizards. So it amazes me that of the people I know who switched from Windows or Linux to MacOSX they are all using Mozilla or Firefox, OpenOffice or NeoJ, and the free e-mail client with MacOSX which (IMO) is slightly worse than Evolution (eg. it only just got threading). How much productivity did these people gain by changing the OS but keeping the same applications? If you listened to them, you'd think they were suddenly Ultra Productive Super Beings, able to produce documents and e-mails faster than a speeding bullet, but from what I can see they are still spending most of their time inside a word processor or an e-mail client.
So how much more productitive are you with MacOSX? Be honest. Instead of replying immediately with "U R DUMHED, MACOSX IS HEAPS FASTER FOR EVERYTHING", step back and reflect on actual improvements. Are you saving minutes per week? Hours? Nothing at all? In my case it was a few minutes per week and I wasn't willing to lock myself into a proprietary upgrade treadmill to save a few minutes per week.
Re:Productivity... how much is myth? (Score:4, Interesting)
Giggle. It's amusing that you think I'm a "light" computer user. I'm a UNIX sysadmin by trade, I code for fun, and I'm currently running GNOME 2.6 (from Debian) with ... 19 windows open across 5 desktops on 2 monitors. My home network is 7 servers (mixture of Solaris and Linux). If you asked anybody in my office whether I was a
"light" computer user they'd laugh in your face.
When I say that I spend most of my time writing e-mail and documents, I'm not saying that's all that I do. I'm saying that boosts to productivity need to address those two tasks first and foremost, because everything else is teasing at the edges. I think my situation is true for near everybody in this office (several 100 people) both techs and suits alike.
GUIs are like pants... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a endless discussion. And usually, the conclusion is not there is a best GUI. There is only an average GUI which fit better more people than others. It's not to say others are worst. They are different. If we would think exactly the same we, we would be very boring, but there will be an ultimate GUI.
But, real life is not so simple. Ask some left-handed people...
Keep things simple. Easy will come by itself. (Score:5, Interesting)
The UI code is usually very long, cumbersome, and complex. In most of the projects that I've been a part of, most of the software's bugs were in the UI section. The software had to process many important things, but the STUPID UI kept it from doing its job.
But even worse is this: "Ease of use" really depends on what the user wants to do with the system. The problem is making a UI that is easy to use, but not so "easy" to use that it is demeaning to the user. Microsoft UIs are perfect examples of what I mean. Their software is set up for babies to use, with talking paperclips and whatnot, because it has to be "easy" to use. And in a constant effort to improve ease of use, they may make it easier for 1st time novice users, while making things longer, more cumbersome, and hence more difficult to use for normal users.
So how do you know if something is easy to use? When the customer uses it and you get feedback? Well, the problem is that 101% of the time, the customer thinks he knows what he wants, but he doesn't know what he wants. And herein lies the problem. You actually need experts in the field, not just those who are experts in modeling and programming the system, but also those who are experts in the psychology behind the system. In other words, the history of this type of system, why things were developed the way they were in this field, how users use the device, what goes through the user's head--what he expects to be the logical way to operate the device, rather than what actually is the logical way. And then you run into the problem that to each person, the logical way might be different, so applications end up having 100 different ways to do the same thing. IN OTHER WORDS, YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT FOR THE USER WHAT HE WANTS.
But look at a car. If you know how to drive, you can operate any car in the world. Look at machinery, like lathes. If you are a machinist, chances are that you'll quickly figure out how to operate any lathe. If you've ever used a touchtone telephone, you'll figure out how to operate just about any well designed cellular phone within two minutes. Why is that? Because they follow certain principles? That may be part of it. The bigger part is that the designers of these systems understand not just what they do or how they operate; they understand the psychology behind these systems.
Everybody today is expected to know how to operate a computer. But when there are classes (expensive classes) on how to operate Microsoft Word, that's a big, big, big problem, and it is very deep. Deeper than any words I can formulate can explain. No talking paperclip, no amount of eye candy, no pretty (pretty ugly) menus that become a floating window when you accidently click the mouse in the wrong way, no idiotic icons that nobody can understand, will ever solve the problem. And the BIGGEST problem is this: Since computer applications can NEVER become like a car, they can never operate exactly the same way so that once you know one, you know them all. In other words, all cars on Earth fulfill the same purpose--to get you from point A to point B. But each computer program is designed to fulfill a different purpose, and sometimes, the purposes of two applications can be so different that their UIs will not have ANY similarity whatsoever. So how do you make it intuitive? How do you prevent it from becoming stupid but still difficult to use? And what if certain things cannot, by their nature, become "easy"?
Yes, UIs are extremely difficult to get right. Even Apple's UI, which I strongly feel is the best in the world right now, isn't quite right yet. I believe that with time, this situation will change. Obviously, user interfaces will continue to evolve. But more importantly, as more people are exposed to computers, they will feel more comfortable to experiment and learn. I remember in high school (back in the '9
Lacking facts (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading the whole article, I wonder if Gruber has in fact used any software at all. I also wonder if he knows about anything that's happening with Linux in the news.
ESR's rant made sense. It did have facts, and it was centered around a case study. However, Gruber seems to like abstracting so much that he simply does not mention any software whatsoever!
He simply states that Apple and Microsoft have talent and create good user interfaces and that Linux developers don't. I wonder if he's ever seen a "Aunt Tillie"-esque person in front of a computer. I wonder if he realizes these people exist. I wonder if he's ever used the latest versions of KDE or GNOME. I wonder if he knows what they are....
I suppose my opinion on the essay can be best summed up in Gruber's dismissal of ESR's claims that user interfaces can be improved. ESR specifically details exact changes which would make the CUPS printer installation better. Gruber retorts that user interface design isn't possible without a guru. My point? He takes more time writing an essay on the futility of UI design than it would take to implement most of ESR's UI-improving changes.
Sure, UI design is difficult. But after somebody gave specific UI suggestions, it seems ironic that Gruber would turn around and say that the FOSS community is unable to create good UIs.
Why should we make Linux more "usable?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'm sick of the Linux zealots who think that the future of Linux depends on mass acceptance on the desktop. It doesn't. As long as there are people who like to tinker (and not necessarily "get stuff done") there will be a place for OSS and Linux. Some users/developers may move to Mac OS X or Windows when they decide they want to "get stuff done." and that is fine. There are always the younger geeks ready to pick up where the older ones left off.
All this talk about what OSS should be aiming for is just ridiculous. As if the community as a whole was something coherent and well defined that you can manage or direct. It is chaotic. That is what makes it fun. Linux might make it big on the desktop someday. And that would be cool, i suppose. But if that doesn't happen, no big loss. It works for me regardless.
-matthew
Elegance! (Score:5, Insightful)
Elegance means caring about what you create, caring not only that it works but that it works well, caring that other people may work on it, caring that it may be used in different conditions than you foresaw.
Elegance often means choosing simplicity, and restricting choice; choice isn't always a good thing. Better to have one overwhelmingly good way to do something, whether it's a UI method, an API, a language construct, a business process, or a class method, than umpteen bad ones.
Elegance may mean taking time; time to think things through before you start coding, or time afterwards refactoring out ugliness. But that time is well-spent, an investment that's often repaid.
Elegance usually means consistency: uniformity makes things easy to understand and predict, whereas inconsistency draws your attention to trivia, whether in concepts, code formatting and naming, UI layout, API design, system organisation, or whatever. (Time spent getting bogged down in arbitrary differences is wasted time, even if those differences are shiny or buzzword-laden.) But it can also bring power and flexibility.
Some examples of elegance are clear: Unix pipelines, UI tabs, the iPod. But most aren't so easy to spot. It takes some care to recognise it when you first see it, and more to create it, but it's well worth the effort.
PS. As Blaise Pascal said, "I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had the time to make it shorter."
Not that anyone will see this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Since no one ever mods beyond the first hundred articles, I'm talking to myself here, but...
Of course OSS guys are bad at GUIs. They should be. GUIs are the last refuge of the incompetent.
Printing should not need GUI configuration. Why on earth should it? The devices are mostly connected by USB or network these days, and even the parallel port ones can mostly be easily probed. The print dialogs in the apps take care of pretty much everything else. The printing user should be able to just turn on the computer and use the printer. But no...
Check out the printer interface on the Mac sometime. No, no: not OS X. The 128K Mac. It's basically what I just said. The printers were either smart enough that they could handle whatever the Mac threw at them, or they didn't work at all. As a result, the Mac was a dream for printing---until PC commodity HW got so high-volume = cheap it couldn't be ignored. But even now, the big miracle isn't the clever GUI design for Mac print config: it's the fact that there's so little config, not much GUI is needed.
Heck, look at what the X Window System is doing. Graphical configuration? No. The core X developers are trying as hard as they can to DDC monitors, PCI-id vid cards, and autoprobe mice. Good GUIs are hard, and no one wants to configure this stuff. Just make the SW do the right thing without pressing buttons. Note that Knoppix/X pretty much manages this. On random cruddy commodity PC HW.
Move to a Mac if you like. I have better things to do with my life than navigate menu trees. I have code to write, and games to play, and e-mail to send. I have a life. I don't want a GUI.
MacOS X not as easy as advertised, GNU not as hard (Score:4, Interesting)
I tried getting my network printer up and running with a friend's MacOS X box and it was nowhere near as easy as some Slashdotters make it seem. I had to know the location of the printer on my LAN (MacOS X did not search my LAN for acceptable printers, nor did it discover that this Brother HL1270N is the only printer on the LAN--two items ESR says would improve the GNOME druid he tried in Fedora Core 1) and I also had to know the make and model of the printer. Nothing was auto-discovered, nothing was automatically configured for me.
Conversely, adding the same printer to my GNU/Linux box was about as easy. No automatic configuration there either, but the GNOME druid guided me through the prompts ESR complained about. Yes, much of what ESR had to say was apropos--this process could be made far better along the lines he discussed, but I did not find MacOS X to be anywhere nearly as easy as even this topic's lead-in would suggest.
Adding my Epson inkjet color printer was a different situation. This job was easy when I connected the printer to the GNU/Linux box via the parallel port. My Fedora Core 1 box saw it, configured it on start up (I believe Kudzu did this and it appears to work), and I was left with a printer I could use right out of the box. So I don't completely understand where the "(Side note: parallel port? What year is it in the Raymond household?)" quip came from--some of the printers on LinuxPrinting.org [linuxprinting.org] state that autodetection works with the parallel port, not USB.
It was my experiences with printing under Fedora Core 1 that led me to recommend this distribution to friends (even making duplicate copies of my install discs to give them). So I'm left thinking that we're fortunate to have free software so the community can improve the software that needs improvement and we don't have to wait for someone or some organization to do it for us. I'd happily pay for improved free software if I couldn't do the job myself.
Gruber is staring into his blindspot (Score:5, Interesting)
ESR on those errors.
In fact, UI is not hard anymore (since we don't have to use the Xt object model, the most overengineered piece of object-oriented crap that ever came out of an ivory tower). Instead we have simple UIs and simple object -event models like KDE's components and QT's slots to hide the complexity (most of the time), and vastly more examples of consistent and market-persistent UI designs since back in the day, making UI design and implementation so dead simple the bulk of the time that any barely or even not quite competent coder is without excuse.
No, ESR hit the nail on the head this time. (Even a broken clock is right twice a day?) The upshot is that CUPS is one of the least well-integrated systems on the modern Linux workstation desktop, and it's a real burden on the viability of further popularizing the platform. But fixing it would not be hard. What is hard, and what ESR is addressing, is the more important problem of fixing the underlying cause, which is endemic: Development-centricity so all-consuming that the most gracious and diligent contributors to the public good will overlook the most elementary aspects of the public use of their software.
Your blindspot (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're missing the point entirely. Dragging and dropping a button onto a form is dead easy, and has been for years - it's been around a decade since VB, Delphi and powerbuilder came out.
But that's like saying "painting is easy, paintbrushes have never been so cheap".
Knowing where to put it is the hard part, and is what seperates a good-looking, consistent, learnable, intuituve UI from the usual junk.
Learnability != Usability (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is confusing usability and learnability. Don't get me wrong--learnability is not a bad goal. The difference is as clear as that between vi and Notepad. There's no question which is more usable, or which Aunt Tillie should use.
Re:Learnability != Usability (Score:4, Funny)
Because if notepad is open, I can quit it easily and go open medit. This takes me about 2 seconds.
But if vi is open, I have to either flail at the keys trying to remember what the fucking exit sequence is, or just kill the job. Then I can go open medit. This takes me about 2 minutes.
Therefore, notepad is both more usable and more learnable!
Here's What He Get's Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is pretty perceptive about some things, specifically, seeing the underlying attitude in Raymond's article which was itself the cause of Raymonds problem.
Here's the thing though: he points out that usability and UT design are arts, and require gifted, talented people to perform. I have this to say.
THE SAME FOR WRITING SOFTWARE YOU, POMPOUS ASS.
Have you read the Mythical Man Month? You just can't throw developers at a project to make it better. The author here seems to think that this is how OSS operates - lots of developers ameleorating their overall mediocrit. And yet Open Source is still churning out high quality software at a rate to make MS blush, and only a food would think that the quality of the Linux kernel was entirely about the number of developers working on it. So, clearly, we must have strong leadership and good talent working for us. Why hasn't the same thing happened for usability?
It will. The fact that Slashdot posts articles about usability shows how the community is turning the furor of a thousand keyboards in the direction of usability. Once again, someone misunderstands "Open Source", and begins to say what it can and cannot do. I say wait and see.
Re:usability (Score:5, Insightful)
In all honesty though, why hasn't any UI had a check box under the mouse settings which says "Click here to have focus follow mouse." This way, we wouldn't be having these debates. Both uses have their pros and cons...
Re:usability (Score:5, Informative)
I'd kill all of you for focus-follows-mouse in OSX.
No need. From an xterm, enter
defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true
exit X and restart it. Lo, you have focus follows mouse for any X application. There's a similar setting for terminal, and probably other native applications.
Re:Foolish conclusion. (Score:5, Interesting)
Think, for example, mail reading and web browsing. Perhaps photo viewing or editing, faxing, page layout, management of multiple login sessions visually, etc.
I know (and have known for many years) how to use screen, mutt, vim, and change my
I *like* seeing my 12 pixel tall xmms title bar showing what song is playing, my GUI web browser (Firefox) and using Eterm for accessing remote sites.
I'd love to be able to simply call up new SSH tunnels as menu options in a terminal window or initiate remote file transfers without launching a new session or reauthenticating, and some of these are generic UI issues and some relate to using GUIs for efficiency and esthetics.
I hate to break it to you, but my GUI renders fonts nicer than the text screen and makes multitasking simpler as well. I rarely if ever use a mouse; I'm addicted to alt-tab, my custom key bindings in Enlightenment and other 'tricks', but I'm definately a GUI user.
Re:Foolish conclusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
I love apache. I love php. I love mysql and postgres. The list goes on and on. I could care less what distro or whatever I run these tools on because in the end, it really doesn't matter. Microsoft has made great strides w/ windows xp over previous releases, but it is too little to late for me to stay with them. I also don't like the direction the secure computing platform is going in (my opinion).
However, I am also a fan of productivity. Certain tasks require a command line input and some scripting ability. Other tasks require a decent gui. Currently, only Aqua is filling this role (my opinion)
I am also lazy. I do NOT want to track packages installed by myself. Package managers were created for people like myself. I will only install from source if the benifits outway the ease of using the package.
In this sense I consider myself a Unix Geek (debate as you will). When the opurtunity arises for me, I will be making the switch to OS X, as I suspect many others are or will be doing in the near future.
Your double standards are appalling. (Score:4, Insightful)
A _NEW OPERATING SYSTEM_ takes TIME to LEARN!
Most everyone who switches to OS X and actually takes the time to familiarize themselves with the way things work find that their productivity increases. Don't confused "eye candy" with "consistency", as a lot of people do. Just because everything looks the same doesn't mean it's gratuitous.
How long did it take you to learn all the flags to ls, cp, ps, netstat, ifconfig, df, du, man, vi, emacs and be able to type them off the top of your head at nearly 100wpm? Let alone the intricacies of being able to bang out a 100-line bash, tcsh, perl or python script at a moment's notice. It takes YEARS, my friend. And I'm not even talking about serious development - I'm talking about being able to organize your mp3s, or something equally mundane.
Hmm, took me the better part of 5 years before I was totally comfortable and at full productivity at the command line. Now, 10 years later, I'm at home in OS X, where the GUI is there to help me get certain things done fast, and the terminal is there to help me get other certain things done fast.
The beauty of OS X is that a 10-year UNIX veteran feels just at home in it as does a 10-year old computer neophyte.
If you can't grasp this simple concept, I suggest you go ditch the Mac and go learn UNIX-like operating systems until you _really_ get it. Because right now you obviously don't.
Re:OSX... (Score:4, Interesting)
A: One, HFS+ (or two if you count HFS, both of which are terrible)
Well, you actually also at least have UFS - or others if you care to format them yourself (like an msdos_fs).
Q: How many desktop UI's do you have available to you?
A: One. Aqua
Infinite, it comes with X11.
Q: How "customizable" is your interface (aqua).
A: pretty limited.
In what regard? Are you talking skins or what exactly? To what end do you wish to configure the system? If you start rooting around in pref files or (god help you) app bundles you can really do some damage (so to speak!!).
I've not actually done any of that as I like how it works, and have no desire to add a chicken-themed skin to the edges of my windows. And one of my favorite window managers used to be GWM long ago because of amazing flexibility!!
Q: How portable is the cocoa framework?
A: oh yeah, its not at all..
I had thought GnuStep was pretty close but cannot say - I have been doing some Cocoa programming and I like it a lot but do realize it may be very limited in scope (though iTunes seems to have done pretty well).
Q: How many vendor's do you have to choose from if the one you're with takes a direction that you don't like or can't work with?
A: None.
Hey, how many of those vendors are going right where I want to be? Exactly One, lucky for me.
Why not back at least one horse with money that is doing the things you want done? I think buying OSX, then donating to the FSF and EFF and perhaps a project or two you really like is the means of moving OS movement best.
Corrected Answers -- Grade: D- (Score:4, Insightful)
A: One (PPC), two if you count the x86 version of Darwin, as many as you want if you feel like porting XNU (it is open source afterall, and very portable (far more so than monolithic linux in fact, since you only need to port the microkernel, and everything else is hardware independent))
Q: How many File Systems do you have to choose from with OSX?
A: HFX, HFS+, UFS, UDF, FAT32, and various other common filesystems work out of the box, and you can (and people do) write your own plugins for other FSes like ext2 and NTFS.
Q: How many desktop UI's do you have available to you?
A: Aqua, X11, and any theme or window manager you feel like running on top of either of those.
Q: How "customizable" is your interface (aqua).
A: Very, you can change the visual elements of your applications without recompiling or any special tools thanks to apple's application packaging system, and with themes and one of the common tools for managing them you can change the appearance of your whole system quite dramatically.
Q: How portable is the cocoa framework?
A: It is based on an OpenStep, a open specification that has been around for quite a while, as has GNUStep, a open source implementation of that spec. In addition, Apple has in the past prototyped it's own "yellowbox" version of Cocoa running on top of Windows.
Q: How many vendor's do you have to choose from if the one you're with takes a direction that you don't like or can't work with?
A: All of them except microsoft really. If you get pissy about buying Apple's OS updates, you can always install linux or BSD or something on your macs.