Jakob Nielsen Talks About Usability in FOSS 327
dokey writes "In an interview with Builder AU, usability expert Jakob Nielsen gives his opinion of usability in Free and open source software. The article echoed what Jon "Maddog" Hall said earlier this year in a keynote at Linux.conf.au -- "Programmers Are From Mars, Users/Managers/Companies are from Venus". Is it time to pay more attention to end-users?(who aren't geeks)"
it is what IT is (Score:5, Insightful)
Separate program logic from design and let a designer do the interface. Much happier for everyone involved
Is it TIME for End-Users? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, I may develop a quick little utility that let's me interface w/all the X10 in the house. I make it text-based commands, since I need no fancy interface.
Now, change that to Ma and Pa Kettle. Try to sell them the text interface and they call it crap. Add a whiz-bang interface showing all the connections in the house as the appliances/rooms they reflect and M&P buy it.
More IT apps fail from lack of interaction with the end-users.
Usability benefits geeks too (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is this mentality wrong, it's also holding OSS usability back. Geeks are end-users too. If good UI design is targeted at computer novices, as is widely assumed, then why do so many technically talented people love OS X? Answer: Because usability gains for "our grandmothers" are also usability gains for we geeks.
re (Score:4, Insightful)
The power of Unix, the ease of use of the Mac.
OSX makes me money today with increased productivity and access to best of breed apps.
Linux may get there one day...In the mean time i need to get work done TODAY.
This cracks me up (Score:5, Insightful)
Welllll.. considering that without end-users IT wouldn't have a job, it does seem fairly important to pay as much attention as possible to end-users.
If you have to ask that question as an IT person, you are already a few steps behind.
Depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most OSS is written by geeks as a personal hobby - just because they like writing code.
IMHO and experience, designing and implementing a GUI is one of the more boring, cumbersome and uninteresting parts of programming, something like writing office or business applications (atleast for me).
I don't see why a hobbyist would do something he didn't like.
Usability (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with an OS/application that only geeks can use. Just don't try to market it to non-geeks, and there's no problem whatsoever.
I personally don't want my OS and applications dumbed down to the level of other OSs. The lack of control and options in metacity, for example, is shocking. It's almost getting to the point where you have to swallow default configs if you want the "user-friendly" distros to even work right at all.. For example, I can't turn off Nautilus unless I don't care that my background doesn't get properly set to my root window, something that should not depend on nautilus at all. (and doesn't, I can go manually reset each time I restart X, without starting nautilus).
I won't even get into the hassles if, god forbid, you want to run a second X session on
If anything, the lame attempts of programmers to second guess what the end-users want, locking them into defaults, and not testing non-default configs, is a horrible trend in general.
Could he be anymore wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you need to ask this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite aiming to extend the reach of FOSS distros into the desktop developers still write software that most users can't use.
This gets brought to the community's attention quite frequently and despite this the core point remains unexamined and unanswered:
Geeks who write FOSS software aren't the ultimate market for those tools (or at least they aren't if you want to help spread FOSS) and until tools and software is written for a broader market then Linux will remain a server OS.
And while we're at it can we all drop phrases like "Joe User" and its ilk? Perjorative terms describing what is your actual target market don't help you create better software for them.
Step 1 is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, many people do FOSS development as a means of creating software to supplant commercial software, or as a means of creating new ideas in software. Those are the ones that should be paying attention to non-geek end-user needs. Furthermore, those that wish to be taken seriously as developers for end-user solutions need to do so as well.
A lot of it comes down to understanding who you're writing software for. If it's for yourself, who cares? If it's to attract other users, then you have to consider your target audience and if the audience includes the basic non-geek user, then you need to plan for their needs.
Usability is a big deal! (Score:5, Insightful)
The beauty of ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Jakob Nielsen lacks insight (Score:4, Insightful)
Delicate balance (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the reality is that people need to think more like computers. You cannot be a blathering idiot and expect and optimal experience from any piece of electronics or software. Don't cite OSX or Windows, they also manifest deep system details at high levels.
Yes we can hide, obscure and wrap in metaphors, but this implies a loss of control, which I am not sure most of the actual users of this code want.
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
(sig) "I think the [MS Word] paperclip is a great idea. - Miguel de Icaza"
Your sig could not have said it any better!
Dunno about you (Score:4, Insightful)
I find this kind of article mystifying. I find mandrake 10 to be oriented towards the end-user, for I AM an enduser. And I get work done.
I bet all the posts on this page could be found in the previous articles harping on the "linux needs to be friendly to end-users" meme; but people just haven't realized yet that there ARE distros out there which are friendly to the end-users.
Cloning Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point taken. I hope I'm no troll or flamebait here, but have you seen KDE or GNOME lately, as well as their applications? They almost look like replications of the Windows interface. Isn't leaving Windows and learning something new part of the "benefits" of switching to Open Source? I think that the Open Source developers should build a brand new interface from the ground up, that is different from the other interfaces out there, but also useable enough so that way non-geeks would be able to use it with minimal trouble.
What I mean is this. Say you're a hypothetical non-geek Windows user who is using KDE or GNOME. You notice that the interfaces look very, very similar; the minimize/maximize/close buttons are in the same spot, the bar where your applications go works quite similar, and everything has a bit of familiarity. But say you want to go further. Then you'll hit some rough spots, because KDE/GNOME doesn't work exactly like Windows does, even though it looks very similar to it.
But what if I gave that same user a completely different user interface, one that the user has no experience in. Yes, the user would have to learn how to use the new interface, but if the interface is well designed enough for usability, the user will master most, if not, all of the aspects of the user interface in very little time. Plus, because the interface doesn't look like anything that he or she seen before, the user wouldn't expect "well, it worked here in this environment, so it should work the same way here."
Re:This cracks me up (Score:1, Insightful)
That's the point. As long as the interfaces remain sh*t, there will never be many jobs in FOSS.
8-Ball Nielsen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:re (Score:3, Insightful)
You love your Mac, fantastic, I think Apple makes some sexy hardware and OSX is a cherry OS. However, "windows integration"? How so? Using VirtualPC? That's emulation (PPC X86), hardly integration. Don't get me wrong, I dislike Windows but, for those uncomfortable situations when I'm forced to do some Win-specific work, I can launch a Win4Lin session on Linux that brings up a *native* Windows environment in about 5 seconds flat.
No.-Derelection of Duty. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Usability benefits geeks too (Score:2, Insightful)
The beautiful, mouth-watering interface isn't the only reason why geeks (like myself) love Mac OS X. Geeks also love OS X because it has a Unix core, meaning us geeks could work on the command line, use our Unix tools, and do our work. Not only that, but while we are doing those things, we can be listening to songs from our iTunes collection and painting in Photoshop. The proverbial "Grandma" likes Mac OS X because she could do what she likes to do, whether it is typing a letter on Word, browsing the web on Safari, or browsing her photo collection on iPhoto, without the fuss and worrying about other things, such as going through a hard to learn interface or worrying about viruses, malware, 5cr1p7 k1dd135, and other perils of computing.
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Usability
Usability
Usability is the process of making something usable, not making it unusable. Usability is the process of giving control, not taking it away. Usability is elegance in interface. Your uninformed attitude is exactly the problem computer programmers and users have these days. There is a process of making something useable, and from what it sounds like you are confused as to the desired outcome.
The sad thing about people with this attitude is that you would rather see a program with elegant code and an inelegant interface because you somehow think it's more powerful. We as coders should be sticklers on elegance in Code and in Interface.
This all ties into a more basic problem with computer programmers; communication. We need to learn how to communicate with the rest of the world. I don't know how many times I've been in a business meeting where I have had to deal with users, managers, and sales people and after the meeting they have told me how amazing it was to speak with someone who was technically trained, yet knew how to speak to a layman.
This is the exact same thing here, we expect the layman to learn our vocabulary and now you want them to learn our esoteric ways of using programs. We spend years learning how to break complex problems into small logical problems which can be solved. We solve these problems using complex logical diagrams and patterns. Now as it is our job to break these problems down into solvable problems, it is also our job to synthesize the results into a useable dataset. Part of that usable dataset is actionable results, as well as useable interfaces to access those results.
Please, for the sake of your job learn some usability. If you don't someone else will end up maintaining your code and getting your job, and they will be asked to make your code more useable. Heck, they might even be asked to make the code do something you already have it capable of doing, but no one can figure out how to make it do that. Have you ever heard of that problem (MS WORD).
Re:it is what IT is (Score:3, Insightful)
But what do I know, I'm just a glorified HTML guru.
Make a difference (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on your target audience. For a specialized library maintainer, a user means another specialist in coding.
But some people do not care about others in normal life, why shoud we expect from such to be different in software design? If you are a nerdish geek, you don't value a distorted reality of Clicky'n'Picky ordinal users much high. So there is a need to develop some spiritual qualities, empathy and compassion. Without these, there is no mastery of any craft, not only of software. Craftsmanship maybe, but no mastery.
But certainly I never had compassion for corporations and corporate users. They understand only money. Let them pay for features they want.
God yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a software engineer myself, I find the lack of attention to the user interface with end users (even other geeks) terrible.
Let's face it: I don't have the time or energy to learn the ins and outs of all the possible software out there. 90% of the time, I want the base functionality, and don't want to have to learn how to set 10 things, just because I want to do 1.
I'm sorry, but most of you programmers that think that an effective user interface isn't important are either ignorant, lazy, or both.
Take a User Interfaces class. Not only will your end-products improve, but you will also get some insight as to how other users may be thinking, and what they're looking for.
The most important thing you need to do before you begin the act of creating anything is to Understand Your Audience. I guaruntee, your audience will not follow the same thought processes you do.
~D
We need to make UIs easy to code (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to have good UIs, we need to involve people who can design them. In order to involve them, we have to empower them to make patches on their own. And that means arranging for UI coding to be completely obvious, and separate from the inner workings of the program.
Re:Cloners (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is the better of the evils?
And people complain about a lousy job market! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I just can't understand this kind of thinking, although I encounter it all the time. If you're writing utilities for yourself or for a group of people very much like yourself, it's no problem. But if you're writing commercial software, you're not writing for yourself. Your whole livelihood revolves around solving other people's problems. Expecting your customers to adapt their way of thinking to your way of coding is just piss-poor customer service. You want their money; that means you make it easy for them, no matter how challenging that may make the coding task for you.
Oddly enough, I came to these convictions not through coding, but through years of work as a DJ. No kidding. When I started out, I had all these pretensions about educating the great unwashed in what good music was. And you know what? I got the conceit beaten out of me very quickly, as I cleared dancefloor after dancefloor for the first two months.
I soon realized that my job was to play what the crowd wanted to hear. And if their tastes had been informed by 30 years of top 40 radio, tough luck for me. My job was to figure out, at any given gig, what kind of crowd I was dealing with and play accordingly. And it's worked wonders.
Interestingly, I came to learn that if I do that well enough, the crowd learns to trust me. They're so happy with what I'm playing (after 13 years, I virtually never have a bad night) that if I slip in something new, they'll usually give me the benefit of the doubt enough to dance to it anyway. That's right: I have more success introducing new music now, than I ever did when I was looking down on the people who were cutting the cheques.
The same applies to software. I seem to be a rare case: someone with real interaction design chops, who has also written a C compiler. But it seems like a natural marriage, because what proper usability research does for me is confirm that I'm solving the right problem in the right way.
I think Eric Sink has an article or two about this where he distinguishes between what he calls developers and programmers, but I'm too lazy to Google for it.
Too true!-The Pleasure Principle. (Score:1, Insightful)
You can't please everyone, but you can make it easier for people to please themselves.
"Joe User" != pejorative (Score:3, Insightful)
And while we're at it can we all drop phrases like "Joe User" and its ilk? Perjorative terms describing what is your actual target market don't help you create better software for them.
"Joe User" is not a pejorative term. "Joe Luser would be, as would "Joe RatB*st*rd", but there is nothing inherently negative in "Joe User". He represents the canonical end-user (go figure) who doesn't care about how the computer works so long as it does. Actually, when it doesn't work he still doesn't care about the inner workings, he just wants the IT guy to get in there and fix it. This, believe it or not, is a completely reasonable approach.
Lighten up, Francis.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cloning Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
"OSS should stop cloning MS and do something completely different, only it should be more usable." That's great, do you have any visionary ideas? How many ways are there to make a word processor or e-mail client work?
As for your window buttons example, you can put them wherever you want on the window. By default they're where they are on Windows presumably to take advantage of user familiarity. You can have as many panels as you want and put them wherever you want, and have buttons or start menus or whatever. You can even remove all desktop icons and have a right-click menu like fluxbox in KDE. Or you can turn off the desktop all together.
So, is your suggestion that the default setup should be arbitrarily different from MS? Or should people magically come up with totally revolutionary ideas? Then the projects will get flamed because "it's too hard for people to learn to use."
Chicken or Egg? (Score:3, Insightful)
I eagerly upgraded to a 386DX/40 and started using DOS v5.
From there I went to Win3.11 and then an addon called Dashboard (made by HP IIRC).
All this time my computer and UI upgrades were fun, and something that I looked forward to.
Then I tried Win95. Ack, I hated it. I couldn't uninstall it quick enough.
I got used to Win95 (never really "liked" it), and followed to upgrade path like everyone else.
Win98 was better, Win2k was good. I enjoyed how 'tight & clean' everything felt, and I still thinks it's the best looking OS that MS made (including XP in classic mode).
XP (default) made me gag, and I couldn't change the settings quick enough.
I have always 'tweaked' my OS (from DOS days of hacking the io.sys, msdos.sys, and command.com, all the way through till now)
I have tried using most of the linux distro's and it feels anymore like it's just more work to try to turn all crap off that Joe-Programmer "thinks" that Suzie-Soccermom will like.* I have tried using a Mac,and I don't like it. I have heard that it's the best UI for folks who have never used a PC before, and I must admit that this 'old-fart' won't ever touch it if he has the choice.
Anyhow back to my point, I left it somewhere around here. I have recently tried using iTunes.
Untill now I have been using WinAmp v1.8 and then I moved on to FooBar2000.
Tight, small, simple, no fluff. I loved that program, but I thought i'd try something new.
iTunes:
It's great for searching, (even better if you have good ID3 tags)
I still need to learn/use it more, but I think I like it. (The secret is to forget that the DOS world ever existed, don't you dare use Windows Explorer to do anything usefull, and be a Suzie-Soccermom x For Dummies idiot.)
But other then that, I think I like it.
What I want to know: Am I just an old-fart who is stuck in his Carmudgenly ways, or are good UI options being dropped in favor of candy-coloured eye-goop, that serves no enhancement of the computing experience other then the "I wanna see if it can do this" mentality?
*I have tried using XFCE but I couldn't figure out how do do much. The terminal with vi & links & mutt were more intuitive. =)
What needs to come first: A geek writing for a geek. An artist who see the vision that the original geek wrote. Or a geek writing for his sister. (not mother, that is why we have all this eye-candy and Help-Wizards)
My vote: leave the art for the artists
the code for the programmers,
and the easy to read files for the hackers to hack.
Between those 3,a good combination will be met.
Re:Dunno about you (Score:2, Insightful)
all that shit runs fine on windows.
expose is no better than the taskbar except in "looks and coolness".
searchlite, who knows what it is and who cares? i "search" for files once a month at most. I'm organized unlike you.
consistent interface? metal vs aqua etc.
my friends in the creative industry are buying Dells in droves. Photoshop is the same on ANY os and is better supported on Windows.
OpenOffice isn't the same as MS Office, it's BETTER.
Video? I tried to bring my home movies off my Sony digital camera into iMovie and lo and behold, iMovie won't allow me to unless I buy QuickTime Pro! iLife is a fucking LOSS-LEADER!
Same with DVD production. Buy extra shit, and lots of it. Every DVD I make with iDVD has a big-ass Apple logo on it. Nice home movies Apple. It's a fucking trojan horse ad machine.
Grandma wants Windows so when it breaks the kid next door can fix it and show her how to do stuff.
Elementary school kids get what they get, which are computers that don't cost extra because they have a glowing Apple logo and keyboard that lights up in the fucking dark.
Plug and play wireless? That's because the big companies, INCLUDING APPLE, support Broadcom ONLY if they won't release specs so the Linux guys can write their own drivers. Apple doesn't WANT Linux to work, they'd become competition!
I've used Linux 20% of the time for years, and I never rebuild my kernel. That's FUD.
And you don't need wine if you're running a $500 Dell that outpowers the best Macintosh for a tenth the price.
Plus OS X is still buggy.
Re:Dunno about you (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I read, the GP post was in the creative industry, and I can't see how you justify a lot of your examples:
'For anyone in the creative industry. No.'
The GP seems to prove you wrong there. (If I(m mistaken, please flame away)
'For anyone that needs Office. No. (and please don't say OpenOffice is the same)'
OpenOffice, no but a lot of non profits and governmant agencies where I live seem to think StarOffice on Linux is just fine for their needs.
'For Grandma. No.'
Mabey, never tried, but my non-geek gf (a literature student) gets on with Mandrake 9.2 just fine, and no I'm not there 9-5 everyday fixing things.
'For elementary school kids. No.'
Because it hasn't got word? I can't see what's missing here, or mabey I'm just completely out of touch with the kids around here...
'For plug and play wireless networking. No.'
Can't comment, never used wifi at home or at work, never needed to.
'For people that don't want to rebuild kernels with new revs of linux. No.'
Have you used Linux in the last 4 years (and no, typing ls in Debian doesn't count). None of the End user orientated distros require this any more.
'For people that want features like expose and searchlite months or years before the competition. No.'
Don't know what it is so I can't comment.
'For people that don't want to use Wine to run commercial apps. No.'
Depends on what commercial apps you want to use, and I can't say that I'd pack pure wine in the same categorize as CXOffice or (purchased) cedega here.
Please tell me what I've missed.
Re:Is it TIME for End-Users? (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people seem to think that the more usable the UI the more control must be restricted. I belive there is no reason why anyone should ever need to access a config text file to change a setting. But I also think there is no reason why they shouldn't be able too.
Re:No. (Yet another /.er who doesn't understand) (Score:3, Insightful)
If users got smarter about computers, programmers wouldn't have to spend so much time on making it nice, pretty, and easy
Usability does not automatically mean pretty. Usability means that the interface behaves as expected, and in a consistent manner. (ie. you don't make a widget that looks like a check box but behaves like a radio button) Pretty is for graphics designers to worry about, not for usability designers. In fact, often the prettiest interfaces aren't the ones that are good in terms of usability. Think of all the nice looking Flash websites you've seen, now think of how easy to use some of those were.
Computers aren't supposed to be friendly, they're supposed to work properly consistently
And that is a large part of what usability is. The application performs properly and consistently given user interaction. Quick, what's the command line option to read config options from a file in program foo? Is it -o? Better hope that's not the command line switch to output the results to the file. How about getting help in program bar? Is it -help or -h? Or how about --help or --h? These are the types of things usability is concerned with -- consistency.
Yes, ease of use is important, and it can't be stressed enough. But, laying all the blame on the users is misguided at best. Most people don't use computers the way programmers do, and they don't want to spend the time to do so. Besides, I'm sure there are plenty of programmers who'd prefer a nice consitent and intuitive interface when they encounter a new program.
Re:Stealth? *ARGGGH* (Score:3, Insightful)
There must be the potential to do the UI or GUI in a radically different way, and maybe make it adapt to the expertise of the user, so that there is not just a minimalist shell for experts or a full bloated GUI for beginners. There might be something to learn from Plan 9, at least it is different.
But it seems to me that already the useability and the problems of Windoze are well-developed in FOSS, some new concepts of user interaction might be useful. For example, the mouse. (I use a trackball, the Logitech spotted ball type, because it is better, I have a mouse on some of my machines, the principle is similar.) Is the mouse relevant, should we use a touch screen (probably not, because of fingerprints, unless you want to spend half your day cleaning it...), maybe a graphics pad, eyeball tracking, a panel of knobs and switches...... Now the screen, text is text, and that will not change, but do we need icons and toolbars to edit it? Maybe extra mouse buttons could be more efficient? (WordPerfect for DOS was a truly excellent program in its day, I never read the manual, it was all done by a template on the F-keys, far better than what we have now.)
The problem is one of both input and output. It is difficult for a small developer to devise a new display device but not so difficult for simple input devices if complex mechanisms can be avoided, or improvised from existing bits. How about a two-ball trackball? And what could you do with the second ball? I ask because I see that when my thumb is not on the ball, it could just as easily be resting on some other control, if there was one. Maybe some foot pedals?
As for output devices, sound is already there, and a nuisance in the wrong circumstances. But, maybe some visual things like extra lights and meters (maybe bargraph LEDs) could live in the space above or below the screen, so as not to waste precious pixels, but attract the user's attention. (I really hate when everything grinds to a halt because some kind of dialogue box has popped up on the main screen and promptly been hidden, a problem that can surely be fixed!)
Chewing over these sorts of ideas, I am starting to think that maybe the F-keys could have programmable captions, so the menu functions are down on the keyboard. This would be done either by a LED matrix in each key, or replace the whole row of keys with a long, narrow touch screen LCD or plasma display.
Just some random ideas, others might be able to devise better, even without fancy hardware.
Re:Let us all learn from him (Score:2, Insightful)
I find the two equally sized columns on his site quite confusing. Its difficult to tell which one to look at to find the information you want (and there is always the question of why there are two columns in the first place). Wouldn't it just be much better to have a smaller category bar and then a detailed information part beside it?
Re:And people complain about a lousy job market! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, I just can't understand this kind of thinking, although I encounter it all the time. If you're writing utilities for yourself or for a group of people very much like yourself, it's no problem. But if you're writing commercial software, you're not writing for yourself. Your whole livelihood revolves around solving other people's problems.
This statement is in no way contrary to the parent poster. In most medium to large scale enterprises, there are *always* product management teams and UI designers who hash out all aspects of the UI before the coders even start their work. It is these people who have the say in how the app looks, *not* the developer. The developer's job is to make the nice mock-ups work as expected.
If not for users (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're going to write a program to be used by somebody, doesn't it make sense to take them into consideration?
FOSS is nice - but what good is Open Source when there's so much extraneous CRAP in the (indifferently commented) code that modifying it isn't worth the bother? What good is Free software when it costs more in time and trouble getting it configured than its productivity is worth?
FOSS is great for technology geeks. It isn't worth a flip (for the most part) for the person that just wants to Get Something Done - primarily because of the lack of standards: how many Linux package managers are inter-operable? Why do dependencies matter so much in Linux apps?
No, I'm not trolling - I'm a Suse user for the last 6 months. But I keep a Windows machine around for those too-many situations where the Linux equivalent (when there is one) of a Windows app simply sucks too bad. Usability and consistency from the user perspective is one area where Microsoft is kicking Linux' ass.
Human Computer Interaction (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Poor OSS UIs" (Score:5, Insightful)
People who measure usablity measure wrong things. They don't measure how easy a program is to use they measure how easy a program is to learn. There is a subtle but profound difference between the two. It may be easier to learn something if there is a tabbed interface with a dozen tabs on it and the user can waste 5 minutes looking for the option he wants but it is by no means easier to use.
This is central dillema. Programs like vi, emacs, sed, awk, find etc are very hard to learn but once you have learned them they are easy to use. They make you more productive. When it comes to usablity nobody seems to care about the people who have taken the time learn something, they all want to concentrate on grandmas who can't tell the difference between turning off the monitor and turning off the computer.
Re:8-Ball Nielsen (Score:1, Insightful)
I used to work in corporate web development. I quit when the company paid a team of consultants $3 million to tell them the same things I had been telling them for two years for free.
Re:Cloning Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite. Usability is the process of making something usable for one set group of people.
You can try to make this group as large as possible, but you will NEVER have an interface that is usable to all groups. I find the MacOSX UI to be less usable than the KDE UI, just because the way I think does not coincide as well to the way the MacOSX UI works.
What bothers me is that usability experts (along with a bunch of blowhards that think they are experts) seem to think that there is "one true interface" and that their concept of usability will work for everyone. The best you can do is say "this interface is optimized for the novice user" or "this interface is optimized for the long time unix guru". If someone says that an interface is ideal for all users they are lying.
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet people still demand that this complexity be simple. IT CAN'T BE DONE! Microwave ovens are easy to use because microwave ovens are simple. In comparison to software, automobiles are easy to use simplistic devices.
Simplifying the interface only frustrates those users who want the power and complexity of the underlying software. It rewards the ignorance at the expense of experience.
You can make software usable, but you don't go about it by slashing away at the functionality, or hiding away the controls in an undocumented morass of registry entries. You do it organizing, adjusting and streamlining the interface according to the common workflows (plural) of the user.
Don't generalize "usability" -- it's multipart (Score:5, Insightful)
You're making the same mistake as various high profile advocates who seem to think that usability is just one single thing. It's not. Usability has many different aspects, and the importance assigned to each of those aspects varies across different target groups. Usability is not just something required by granny. Programmers and managers and accountants and 4-year old Joey and granny all require high usability, and it's a complete mistake to think that non-programmers are the only users to whom the concept of usability applies, and that therefore programmers can't produce the goods.
As a software developer, I expect high usability from my dev tools, and that includes powerful integration between all elements of the toolkit (instead of simplicity), and easy visibility of all component parts (instead of hiding detail on purpose). Neither of these are wanted by granny, but it's a total mistake to then conclude that important general issues of usability like consistency and layout clarity are of no interest to me. They are, and the tool programmer is the person best placed to understand that, and to deliver it.
To simply say "Don't expect usability from a programmer" may sound cool, but it's incorrect. It's incorrect because usability is a multipart issue, comprising a large body of domain-independent elements that underpin access to one or more domain-specific object sets and relationships.
Tool programmers are exceedingly well placed to develop high usability in the domain-independent parts (such as symmetry and clarity) since these require an analytic mind, as well as in the domain-specific parts that apply to the programming domain. The only area where they will often lack competence is in application domains outside of their personal sphere of knowledge. Well, nothing new there --- that's why additional input from domain experts is always required when writing a non-trivial app.
Does this mean that a programmer can deliver excellent usability in an educational app for Joey, unaided? That's unlikely, unless his or her domain expertise includes toddler education. However, the programmer has oodles of the usability expertise needed to deliver elements of usability like clarity and symmetry and effective feedback, because they apply to all target audiences, including programmers.
None of this excuses incompetent design from inexperienced coders of course, but that's a different subject altogether. Only a competent software engineer (both amateurs and professionals) will ever deliver a quality product, barring accidents.
Re:Step 1 is easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Communication error (Score:4, Insightful)
Usability
(Usability is divided by lack of control and stored back into itself)
In other words, the more lack of control, the smaller the usability becomes.
The poster was being a rude ass, because while the points he made about usability were true, the points he made about the parent's ignorace were bullshit. The parent post had been about interfaces that were bad precisely because they took control away from the user.
There are a large number of poeple developing software now who think that more options equals more confusion and therefore everyone should do things the default way and like it. Unfortunately, Miguel is one of them, and that's why the new Gnome sucks.
Re:Step 1 is easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey developers, people ask for skinning on every application, that's a given. Here's your challenge: IGNORE THEM!
Re:Cloning Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
They all have a taskbar/panel of some kind, because they combine two commonly used features (task lists and quick launches) into one convenient area. Heck, even Windowmaker, XFCE and Enlightenment have those. Ditto for them all having windows with minimize/maximize/close buttons.
About the only major difference (other than themes) for the desktops are that OSX and GNUstep like to detatch the application menu from the application.
In short, complaining that KDE and GNOME look like Windows is as silly as complaining that the Honda Civic looks like the Mitsubishi Montero, just because they both have four wheels, a steering wheel, automatic transmission, passenger side windows, glove box, radio, seatbelts, etc. I mean sheesh! When is someone going to come up with an original idea and make a car without seatbelts!
Pity That The Question Even Needs To Be Asked (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that such a question can even be asked tesitifies to the arrogant lameness of many (not all) F/OSS hangers-on and developers who whine about Microsoft's enduring popularity yet continue to produce or extol software that only a geek would use.
If you make something people don't like using, why are you surprised when people don't use it?
Of course, if they started writing software for real people, the tinfoil brigade would have to abandon its two favorite excuses for the failure of F/OSS to take over the world's desktops: 1) The great Microsoft corporate conspiracy; and, 2) Stupid Users.It is much easier to posture as a victim of both Microsoft and users who are too dumb to use your software than it is to start paying attention to other people.
Re:The beauty of ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Step 1 is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The second simple step is to realise that simple functionality should be easily accessible. It doesn't matter how complicated the application as a whole is - if simple things need complicated user interaction to perform then the UI is badly designed.
The third simple step is consistency. If something else does something similar to your application, do it the same way. Don't re-invent functionality. If your application needs to be able to send email (for example), don't write yet another email client, simply invoke whatever one the user is already using.
Good user interface design is really not that hard, but it does need some thought and care to do right.
Re:"Poor OSS UIs" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Focus on usablilty? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two possibilities here: (A) you are trying to bait me; or (B) you haven't used Gnome in a long time. Because anyone that seriously suggests that MS Windows is its prototype is _seriously_ misinformed. I suggest that you check out a more recent version, or try to bait other people.
Oh, and while I might be a proud Gnome zealot, I should also point out that xfce4 is a wonderful desktop environment and much more lightweight than a full Gnome installation.
Re:No. (Score:2, Insightful)
Beginners and advanced users are the exception, not the norm. Make software that's easy to use for a intermedite, make it easy enough for the newbie to not throw up their hands in defeat, and open enought the expert has things to learn and use.
The car example is more apt then you let on. A car is very complex. Internally. The face given to the user is simple, but if you open it up and tinker there's a lot of complexity there. Most won't, but if your inclined to do so it's possible. If your skilled at cars, you can change the engine timings and add/remove parts for better performance, but it's still easy enough to use for a end user that they can sit down with it and it "just runs." If they locked things down so no one could change the parts of the car, the experts wouldn't be happy because they could no longer have anything to investigate or tinker with, and if they only stuck with the complexity (hey, just try and teach someone to drive with a manual clutch and see how enthused they are about driving
Better UIs aren't about limiting choices, but about making choices easier to make and use. UIs aren't about making complex things simple, but making complex things accessable. There's a big difference.
Re:"Poor OSS UIs" (Score:3, Insightful)
The worst part was that it ALWAYS took a few seconds to orient the mouse. No matter what, when you grabbed it you grabbed it in a slightly different orientation every single time. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
And all my Mac friends are "oh, look at the design, it's such a cool design, it's not a beige box, ooo, it's designed." Blow me -- I can chuck that beauty FAST if it's going to cost me in usability. And as far as the beauty goes, garish translucent colors may be great with the teletubbies set, but I never personally saw the appeal. "Lime green" is fine for chewing gum, but I can throw it away after I'm sick of it.
Of course, you kind of have to throw the iMacs away anyway, since they're still not user-upgradeable to a CPU of value. Perhaps it's just easier to toss them when they're already a sickened color of lime green?
Re:Let us all learn from him (Score:1, Insightful)
.
usability expert Jakob Nielsen
Now that's an oxymoron about a moron!
Newsflash Nielson, you are the only person left connecting to the internet at 14.4kbps... the rest of us like embedded images. And yes, on occasion frames are useful.
Such features you advise against using were added to HTML/XHTML for a good reason - they allow better (more efficient) learning and task completion through greater human computer interaction.
Most of your usability heuristics were meaningless even when I studied them years ago at university. I wasn't the only one to think so.
You are a has-been who needs to think about the users of today, not the users of 14.4 kbps internet connections, on 486s with VGA displays.
Until you revise your heuristics, I will not heed them, nor anything else you say. It's a shame when someone who was respected previously continues to enforce their very dated ideas on a subset of the tech community who listen - and are unable to see the flaws and show signs of independent thinking.
--BladeMelbourne
Re:Why usability people avoid OSS (Score:3, Insightful)
User interaction takes place across the entire computing process, not just in the "pretty little front-end" that most programmers think it does. Your choice of algorithms, the names you give files, what engineering tradeoffs are made--everything is going to have some affect on the user experience.
No matter how elegant the programmers think they will have made something, if they try to make the technical part in total isolation from the usability part, they will leave out something critical, and one or more of three bad things are going to happen: the programmers will have to go back and rewrite zillions of lines of code and totally rework the architecture and/or the usability people designing the UI will be massively constrained in what they can do because of the shortsightedness of the programmers and/or there will be lots of legacy UI that confuses users and provides inefficient interaction but is kept in for some or other technical reason (usability guru Alan Cooper refers to this as "scar tissue").
While the MVC design pattern, which has been successfully used to create usable software, does make some attempt at seperation of UI (View) from code (Model), to exploit this pattern to make the software usable and feel truly integrated, you have to design the view first. If you design the model first and the view with the optimal usability breaks the model or the model can't be accessed fast enough, you're screwed. To be able to access your model fast enough or in the right way with your view, you have to make design decisions and tradeoffs regarding how the model is built. How these design decisions are going to be made will depend on how the user accesses the view. You can't simply build a model then try to attach a view to it.
I hope I've clarified my point of view a little.
Usability misconceptions (Score:3, Insightful)
OK all you developers, here's what you should think of when you hear the word "usability".
Get a randomised group of your product's end-users. If your program is for sysadmins you'll want to get sysadmins, and if your program is for novices, get novices.
Set them a series of tasks to perform with your application.
Watch them try and perform these tasks.
Stifle the urge to scream "No, you fool - it's over there" as they fumble around the design that you thought was so brilliant. Instead, take lots of notes.
When it's finished, work out where the common problems are, and then fix them.
Rinse and repeat with a new set of users, until they all get it.
Note that this has nothing to do with arguments such as features vs. simplicity, or GUI vs. CLI, or newbie vs. experienced user. It's just a practical guide to smoothing out your application.
After you've done this with a few apps you'll start to get a sense of how to incorporate good usability from the start, but remember, there's no substitute for testing with real live users.
Re:Usability misconceptions (Score:3, Insightful)