
Ronco Spray-On Usability (2004) - ksvs
http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/spray_on_usability
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pchristensen
Good article with a lot of good points, but I was put off by this quote:

"[UI Design] is not something every programmer can learn. Most programmers
don’t have any aptitude for UI design whatsoever. It’s an art, and like any
art, it requires innate ability. You can learn to be a better writer. You can
learn to be a better illustrator. But most people can’t write and can’t draw,
and no amount of practice or education is going to make them good at it.
Improved, yes; good, no."

I get his point, but saying that everyone who isn't a natural {writer,
illustrator, programmer, UI designer} will never be good is a slap in the face
to everyone who's ever worked hard enough to get good at something (including
the naturals). I think the "naturals" are the people who care enough to work,
practice, think, and generally dedicate themself to becoming great.

~~~
iron_ball
More to the point, the existing UX knowledge out there is so trifling, so
paltry, so embarassingly miniscule, that even mere "improvement" could
represent a thousandfold boon to the consumer.

~~~
pchristensen
Exactly. Read Tufte's 4 books, or just Don't Make Me Think, or just read Joel
of pg's stuff about usability, and you've gone from extremely sh __ty to
mediocre, but you're ahead of 80-85% of everyone else. Throw in a little about
typography and color, and you're probably ahead of 95% of developers. You
might not be the greatest in the world, but the state of the industry is so
bad that you'll have a huge relative advantage.

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asdflkj
_But do you doubt for a moment that Longhorn will provide more improvements
from Windows XP than desktop Linux will gain during the same period?_

Wouldn't have been an unreasonable doubt, in retrospect.

~~~
aston
Har har, but Vista actually changed a number of fundamental things about XP,
including a totally new security model, an overhaul of the graphics system to
move it out of the kernel, and a ton of new performance optimizations like
SuperFetch. What's changed so much about desktop Linux in the same time?
Compiz?

~~~
rincewind
You ask whats changed about "desktop Linux". How is the new graphics system an
advantage for users of "desktop Windows"?

The problem with this discussion is the choice Linux users have. You can
always say Linux has a poor user experience by referring to the software for
Linux you hate most. On the other hand Linux users can say: "it is just an
operating system" or "you picked the wrong distro" or "don't use
fluxbox/emacs/the command line/compiz if you don't like it". You can not not
campare apples to oranges when you compare any subset of the GNU/Linux
software ecosystem to windows.

That being said, the security model in Vista annoys the hell out of everybody
I know who uses Vista. Everytime they interact with this new security model,
it interrupts their workflow and makes them a little bit frustrated and angry,
quite like a fnord.

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Hates_
An oldie, but a goodie.

