
Why Free Software usability tends to suck - 10ren
http://web.archive.org/web/20051125183807/http://mpt.phrasewise.com/discuss/msgReader$173
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alain94040
This is a big problem with free software. Just like everyone else here, I used
to believe that code was everything, and if only I wrote beautiful code, the
world would come to me.

Then I discovered the dark side of business, money, marketing (and meetings,
partnership negotiations, etc.).

You need both. But if you are an independent open source project with no
backing from Sun, Intel or IBM, you are pretty much stuck with the "happy
geek" problem.

Usability is one of those features that geeks tend to be most blind about. My
favorite recent quote from such a geek: "the iPhone is nothing new, there are
plenty of phones with the same specs".

Some people are trying to solve that problem as we speak you know ;-)

~~~
J_McQuade
I agree insofar as that your average 'geek' has a far different definition of
'usability' than the majority of computer users and that, until relatively
recently, free software was written by geeks and for geeks.

However, I am moderately jaded by the notion of usability defined as being "no
learning required" - for example, which is more usable, vi or MS notepad?
Anyone who has put in the effort would surely be able to use the former far
more effectively than the latter, despite the difference in immediate
accessibility.

It sort of muddies the water a little, I know, but I just don't think that
'ease-of-use' can be the last word in usability, and I think this is where
free software excels - look at Firefox, for example. It has the instant
gratification of any modern web-browser, yet offers almost emacs-level
configurability.

I think that this is the happy medium that can only really come out of the
free software world being, as it is, relatively immune to the sort of market
forces that have forced the commercial sector to constantly chase the lowest
common denominator. (who, let's face it, are bizarrely resistant to the idea
that the incredibly complex piece of machinery in front of them might actually
require some _knowledge_ to use properly).

~~~
alain94040
We are both correct.

Ease of use doesn't equate "simple". Ease of use should mean that you can
start using it with no learning curve, but that as your experience grows, you
naturally learn to do more complex tasks.

The secret of ease of use is that for each level of expertise, from beginner
to expert, the tool will seem intuitive, and also take you to the next level
non-intrusively.

That's why it's so difficult to design right!

------
Angostura
The commercialisation of open source has added an instrinsic reason for
suckage.

With closed source software the most common model is the license fee. Support
calls and interaction with the user is a cost and something to avoid if
possible. You polish your code and your interface until the users leave you
alone.

With the rise of support-supported open source, the converse is true. You make
your money from support, so typically the more polish, the less revenue. This
is a fundamentally broken feedback loop IMHO with an intrisinic tension
between product quality and cash. You want the product to very nearly work
perfectly, but require work to integrate.

~~~
lukifer
I'd say it depends on the support model. If, for instance, you sell support as
a yearly subscription, then support calls are a variable cost against a fixed
revenue, and so the incentive goes back to creating streamlined and non-
confusing UIs to lower support costs. Still, it's a good point.

~~~
Angostura
You're right of course. Except perhaps that quite a few people won't bother
with a yearly support contract, if the software is so polished that it doesn't
need vendor support.

I;d just like to clarify one thing. I don't think that open source software
sucks, I think much of it is excellent, I just think that there is an inherent
tension that tends to pull it towards suckage in a purely commercial market.

------
toki
Sorry, i have read opinions like the one in the article many times, but i
think they are just plain wrong. They are a myth. They were true in times when
gtk1, gnome 1 or fvwm were standard. (And that was imo long before 2002). But
times have definetly changed. I prefer the design of linux and of open source
apps. I am no open source developer, but i am using it every day, so:

1\. Most linux distros have well designed UIs, most linux apps too. I would
say that open source apps have a focus on efficiency while many windows apps
have a focus on first-time-users.

2\. Many existing flaws of open source user interfaces have practical reasons:
open source is always somehow "work in progress" / many open source desktop
apps are somehow frontends for command line apps / many open source apps are
grown products which for example come out of old gtk-times.

3\. The real horror are many closed source apps which just ignore all
developed gui standards just because of marketing reasons: Why does my windows
desktop firewall or antivirus need their own gui design and even changeable
skins?! Why does my windows office software give a sh __on what i think is the
best ui for my needs? Why does every app i install have to clutter my desktop
with wizards, autoupdate-system notifications (which somehow look more like
company ads) and hints to other products?

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ZeroGravitas
Same author's follow-up from late 2008:

"Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve it"

<http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/01/free-software-usability>

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wheels
This looks like it would have been accurate 7 years ago when it was published,
but a lot has changed since then.

I don't mean to say that OSS doesn't continue to have usability issues, but
certainly the role of usability folks within the major desktop projects has
changed very significantly since then. Usability in OSS started gaining
traction right around the time this was written and has in the meantime and it
does show.

~~~
jcromartie
OSS generally _looks_ better than it did 7 years ago, but I don't see how true
usability has improved too much. The major packages are a bit better, but the
average project still suffers.

~~~
dkarl
Massive improvements in usability have come about through bug fixes,
increasing the completeness of applications, and better packaging of
applications. I doubt the people doing that work thought of it as "usability"
work, but it makes a huge difference. A lot of Linux's traditional usability
problems have simply been missing functionality: missing GUI applications or
missing features in major applications. Power users can often fill in the
blanks by using extra utilities (transcoding a video file if their favorite
video player won't play it, for example) but average users will be completely
stymied, with the extra insult of spending ten minutes searching through the
app's menus and preferences trying to find a feature that isn't there.

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graemep
It assumes that free software means unpaid developers.

The idea that free software tends to have complex user interfaces is not
convincing. There are lots of things with very simple UIs, including the Gnome
desktop and almost all Gnome apps.

His links seem to disprove, rather than provide evidence for, his points. One
is to a Mozilla enhancement request for an additional setting that was
rejected, the other is to a Gnome usability study - did it lead to changes
(disproves is point) or was it ignored (proves his point).

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markessien
I think the reason is simpler - there is little evolutionary pressure. Coming
from an ISV background, you will see that better designed user interfaces
almost always sell better. Complicated or difficult to understand user
interfaces will sell worse. So there is some type of pressure in commercial
software to go for somewhat better user interfaces.

This pressure does not exist for open source software in the most case. If the
people who are involved in the project find that it solves their needs, they
don't see any need to modify it to fit the needs of new users. So the
interface stagnates at what the core contributors are familiar with.

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omouse
It's not limited to Free Software. Proprietary and enterprise software
usability tends to suck too.

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aaronsw
I mirrored the old mpt site here:

<http://mpt.mirror.theinfo.org/discuss/msgReader$173>

in hopes that Google will index it.

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sp332
Maybe this is obvious, but why does this link use the archive?

~~~
Jakob
Because the article is from 2002 and not available on this URL anymore.

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javert
The author is right that software is often not designed for ease of use by a
novice or traditional aesthetic appeal.

But that's by design - not by "suck".

People building free software generally have themselves as the target
demographic; they're not trying to appeal to novices or compete with Microsoft
or Apple. They have a different definition of "good".

~~~
prospero
_People building free software generally have themselves as the target
demographic_

People building free software generally have themselves as the target user,
which is not the same thing.

Advanced users benefit from straightforward design and simple workflows as
much as anyone else. The programmer may want every facet of functionality to
be readily available, but the majority of users, novice or otherwise, will not
care. The user should not be forced to have the same depth of understanding as
the person who made the software, even if the user is perfectly capable of
attaining it.

~~~
javert
What's the difference between a target "user" and a target "demographic"?

You're right that advanced users benefit from straightforward design and
simple workflows. But I think saying "Linux usability sucks" is tackling a
much broader issue than that.

Plus, I would argue that Unix, and Linux, are all about straightforward design
and simple workflows. Think about pipes and the command line.

~~~
prospero
A user is a specific person (in this case, the developer), who is not an
accurate proxy for a broader classification of people (in this case, people
whose technical acumen is similar to the developer's).

And as to pipes, they're useful in the way LEGO blocks are useful: you can
make pretty much anything you want from them. But sometimes it's just more fun
to have a toy you can play with immediately, no construction required.

