How To Fix the Poor Usability of Free Software 690
flosofl writes "Matthew Paul Thomas has an entry on his blog called Why Free Software Has Poor Usability, And How To Improve It. While this advice is helpful and may indeed lead to improvements in many open source programs, the guidelines may be much more difficult for smaller projects. From the entry, 'Free Software has a long and healthy tradition of "show me the code." But when someone points out a usability issue, this tradition turns into "patches welcome," which is unhelpful since most designers aren't programmers. And it's not obvious how else usability specialists should help out.'" Thomas has been developing the ideas in this essay for years. The critique is comprehensive, listing 15 challenges in the way software projects, and in particular free software projects, are structured, with suggestions for improving each one.
Probably the only good "scope creep" (Score:5, Interesting)
To them, if it does the job, great. And I think many of them have a similar response to usability problems as those asking for ports to different operating systems, or even a binary: "Not my problem, it works for me and that's enough."
Not to mention that, in many cases, what increases usability to a larger audience is reducing efficiency to the programmer who designed it to suit how they work.
The main problem is, I think, unsolvable- (Score:5, Interesting)
A matter of time? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps this article signifies the movement that has occurred with open source software. Whilst I'm sure it's been around a long while, there has been a huge increase in what's available in the last few years. Open Source software is maturing as most things do when they get older.
I'm happy with the 'get it working first - then make it pretty' approach taken by most.
Not true anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a 100% satisfied user of free software, after years of negativism and complaining (I admit, my past sins...). I use: Xandros and SLAX distros, OpenOffice (EXCELLENT usability!), Firefox, the WLAN choosers that come with the aforementioned distros and a handful of console apps. I don't even know the name of the movie player that starts up when I doubleclick on a media file. What's not to like, what's not to be able to use?
First steps (Score:5, Interesting)
My suggestions: start a Usability Level Group where one can see which level of usability the application has ( for platform X).
Things to consider (remember: using starts with considering installation):
-does it compile cleanly?
-is it pre-packaged?
-is it in the standard repositories?
-is there a manual and man page
-are there examples which can be followed
-(if relevant) are there screenshots
-are all options of the application available in the GUI
-let people vote about the quality of the above
First you have to obtain a means to measure usability (by the users is best, I guess).
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
Usability isn't supposed to be tied to the way you're used to do things, but to how intuitive it is.
Let's take an old tired "cliché", if you will. Having to click on a button labeled "Start" to then choose "Shutdown" isn't obvious and must be learned.
An old version of Quicktime had the volume control as a rotary dial. Yeah, that went well once translated into mouse control. That's why it was gone by the next version or so.
Make clean interfaces with well-organized controls (keep it to a minimum, to what's required for the current task), label things properly if needed (not everyone knows how to use your programs) and don't overload the users with choices (have a "normal mode" and "expert mode", if needed).
Other than that, use the OS's own widgets and don't force your "pretty graphics" onto your users. Slashdot's own form buttons come do mind (the Preview, Quote Parent, Options and Cancel buttons really seem out of place with the Aqua form widgets and probably with all the other OS widgets as well).
New design paradigm required (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a UI designer by trade, and many is the time I have thought about wading in to a F/LOSS project in order to improve the usability of the interface (last one I considered was IPCop). While I agree with most of TFA, it doesn't seem to emphasise the real point for me, which is that UI design for free software requires radically different skills *from the designer* to that which are necessary in the commercial world.
Because people are so tolerant of awful UI, good UI designers are all about persuasion, charm, leadership and inclusiveness without losing focus. To achieve this commercially is not easy, but at least somebody has hired you in an expectation that you will do this work. Grabbing a bunch of elite coders and trying to persuade them to change their stuff is a massive challenge, even if you have VoIP, virtual whiteboards, etc. I would not expect maintainers to understand, appreciate or tolerate my intervention, mainly down to the reasons the article cites, and I'm not sure I'd be able to persuade them otherwise. Usability is not obvious and often requires a leap of faith, an abandonment of the wrong kind of complexity, and very often a lot of pain.
Still, the more we have these discussions, the better, and I hope the article gets read by a lot of Slashdotters for that reason.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up. The whole source of this problem is that most programmers can't design (or follow UI guidelines), but they think they can. On the flip side, I've seen a lot of designers who can sort of code makes some really god-awful programs that look great that are less optimized than doing it by hand.
I can't design and I know it. But I still know when someone else's design either works or fails utterly, and I'll give the designer props/shit accordingly. Typically, coders are very poor designers and designers are very poor coders. There are the rare exceptions of course, but they're off making too much money to devote time to free software (the single exception that I know of being the designer+developer of Quicksilver).
Widely-used Free software occasionally picks up enough steam to get some people who can really design on board (read: Firefox), but by and large, Free software tends to be developer-centric, menu-driven apps that work very well if you can figure out how to use them. As a developer I often can, but I still tend to suggest people use the paid equivalent if they ask simply so they don't come back to me every hour asking how to do that next thing.
Usability expert with a (little) bit of free time (Score:3, Interesting)
Just for the sake of being proactive (and on-topic, oh horror!), a colleague is a usability expert and has acquired a fascination with free software. I thought that jumping in and rolling up his sleeves would be a good induction, so here's asking: anyone sitting on an interesting project with a need for (and willingness to listen to) such a one?
Poor usability? (Score:5, Interesting)
Poor usability? Is there really anybody who thinks that Internet Explorer 7's user interface is better than Firefox 3's?
I'm getting tired of hearing this over and over again. For example, in the past 7 years, GNOME has invested an insane amount of effort in usability. Go read about all those professional GNOME usability studies that Sun has funded. Also, go read Ubuntu and "desktop environments" [mpt.net.nz], written by the same author who wrote TFA. In that article, he criticizes people for wanting to include a configuration option in Ubuntu's installer which asks the user whether he wants GNOME, KDE or XCFE. He argues that such a choice is simply too confusing to most non-technical people. And indeed, people like my dad and mom don't know, or want to know, what GNOME is.
In the past 7 years, GNOME has done its best to address exactly that kind of criticism. Almost every single feature is scrutinized with usability in mind. GNOME has been removing more and more configuration options from the user interface in order to make things easier for the average user. In fact, they've done so much their best that the technical audiance, i.e. Slashdot/OSNews/Reddit, is constantly flaming them for removing config options. Yet this same audience is flaming them for not being usable.
KDE, too, has invested a lot of effort in usability. But what's the community doing? Instead of offering helpful feedback, perhaps mockups or even professional usability studies, they're flaming the developers. By flaming, instead of offering useful feedback, they're discouraging the very people who made the software from improving it. And you're wondering why they're having a hard time?
Go figure.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue is more general than that. The usability experts who can't code *can* improve usability, by telling the developers what to do.
It's more of an issue of *just* criticising, instead of offering constructive opinions. If all you can do is say "this sucks" but not say why or how it can be improved, then I agree, you have no business in software. If, on the other hand, you can find a way to improve it, I'm sure many people will welcome your advice and implement it.
Re:Probably the only good "scope creep" (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you've got the development community all wrong. By the time a project has moved from the "useful to me" phase to the "useful to the community" phase, the developer has already acknowledged that the opinions of the users are valuable.
As long as the requests from the community don't directly contradict something that the developer requires the project to have, the developer will usually attempt to make the community happy. The problem is the community doesn't often speak with one voice and so it's difficult for the developer to know which side of contradicting requests he should accept. Often, the only position the developer can take is to wait for the community to reach a consensus before he does anything.
Don't blame the developers for this, they're just part of the equation.
Re:Really a matter of taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't really think it's possible to quantify "usability" when to most people it's best rendered as "similarity to Microsoft products."
We designers have a mantra for that, usually attributed to Henry Ford:
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."
You may like to ponder that in the light of that statement you made.
Re:Really a matter of taste... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't really think it's possible to quantify "usability" ...
Which is one of the reasons we're discussing an article about the poor usability of OSS right now.
You've obviously never worked with a good UI designer. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't real.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
"But I still know when someone else's design either works or fails utterly"
No, I don't think you do. Not fersure, at least:
Tell me: which design works better for *me, Quicken or GnuCash?
The OLPC XO laptop would be a good case study (Score:3, Interesting)
This software for the XO laptop is an open source project that is intended to be used by elementary school kids.
Usability by its target audience is absolutely of the essence. It is not a project in which the developers can get away with saying "it works for me," nor can they tell their eight-year-old audience "if you don't like it, patch it."
The XO laptop is thus an example of a situation where there are strong "incentives for usability." In fact, the entire enterprise fails if the device is not highly usable by elementary school kids in third world countries with no previous computer experience.
Time will show us how usable the XO software is. It will either be a data point that demonstrates that, indeed, the open source process produces highly usable software provided only that there is an incentive for usability... or that it really has a systemic problem that incentives cannot overcome.
Dang (Score:3, Interesting)
I already posted in this thread or I would give you all my mod points.
The most usable of all possible interface is probably the command line. There's no uncertainty about what icons mean, instructions are usually a keystroke or two away (and don't take eleven minutes to get online and load), etc.
Pace Microsoft Bob, if you cannot be bothered to learn the language (phonetic or ideogrammatic) that an interface is "written" in, don't blame *it.
Re:The main problem is, I think, unsolvable- (Score:3, Interesting)
This would be true if FOSS were solely developed by volunteers, only interested in their own preferences, but there are two other groups to take into consideration:
We haven't seen good usability in FOSS products due to the reason you mentioned: the software developers have been the only stake-holders in the process. That situation is changing. For example: the person who wrote the article, works for Canonical. It is in Canonical's interests to get as many users on Ubuntu as possible, this is all part of fixing bug #1! [launchpad.net]. Canonical can afford to pay usability experts to improve FOSS, and as average users try things out, they -- or their power user friends -- will raise bugs when usability issues arise.
Great progress is being made, if you check out Matthew's previous blog post on usability issues [mpt.net.nz], from when he first started working for Canonical, you'll see most of the problems shown there have been fixed.
The only thing I see standing in the way, are developer egos [slashdot.org]. I personally hope these can be worked around!
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the general contractor "builds" the building.
I would take the advice and design saavy of a good general
contractor over any architect any day. People who are in the
trenches are much more likely to have a better grasp of what
all of the bits written on scraps of paper actually mean for
the people who will be living in the house.
"designers" can too easily fixate too much on each other's
bullsh*t and lose site of the real world.
Wait a minute (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people complain if it doesn't act exactly like the proprietary counter part, eg. The GIMP. I bet most the "usability" problems of free software is that it doesn't look and act exactly like the closed-source counter part
No it is not (Score:2, Interesting)
If you would be designing a mall for me and I noticed that some area would be better accessible if you added a new walkway and some doors, you would as a good architect listen to me. Not just because you wouldn't get paid if you didn't (which often would be true), but also because end users are always right.
End users are not right in what they want though. They know that something bugs them, and often can't tell what it exactly is, or how to fix it. Their suggestions are sometimes quite horrible, and they are not giving exact solutions to problems. Still, they nearly flawlessly always know that something IS wrong. It is the job of the better architects to attempt to understand what is the real problem and fix it. If you wanted to hop back into software usability, people feel naturally things like the focus stealing issues, having to memorize complex paths to functions, and confusing dialog language as bad. They come in 90%+ of the cases forward with real issues, real problems, although their explanation of the problem and how it should be fixed is most commonly trash.
Now, bad architects would either tell the end user to stfu or (often even worse) implement blindly what was requested. That wouldn't fix the problem in either any way, or produce plain mess. A good one would attempt to understand the real issue, and when failing (in open source case, 99.99% of the time) go ask for a second opinion from subject area expert. Oh, building architects are not almighty. They know a lot, but they do ask from others if they need some detail.
Usability experts are available to developers, and they are more than willing to tell you why the current feature X is bad, and why. That discussion is based on the limits of the human brain and cognition, and on solid science. It is reasoned, logical, and can produce great value.
What I don't get are people who are like "Why should I? I am doing this on my free time! You can't force me!". It is exactly the same as saying "I know I am a bad architect. I do not want to take bride of job well done. I like my creations being bad! I don't want to evolve into something better!". It's plain appalling and I feel kind of sad because of it.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Make it simple, stupid, is btw, one of the common mistakes. MS wizards are simple. Nobody uses them. You still have to invest in the tool to work with it: read each page, make decisions. The rule should be: if you can decide for the user, don't confront him with the question, let the program figure it for the user. Allow configuration, don't force it. Think Skype. Think Ubuntu. Now think xinetd...
Re:Why is "patches welcome" a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Perhaps instead of the "patches are welcome" you just say that you don't have time to work on it, don't want to work on it, or that it is very low on your priority list."
Maybe it's just me, but to me, "patches welcome" already means that. To me it means that I don't care enough personally, especially because I'm not getting paid, and that it's up to me when or whether I'll do something. You're of course completely free to contribute, either by doing it yourself or by hiring me or someone else. It's your problem after all.
"Why do you expect people to help you with YOUR project when you won't even give them a useful response? You just told them that their concern was beneath you"
What kind of response do you expect from someone who's working for free? If I responded with "Sure, hire me and I'll do everything I can to address these issues. My rate is $150 per hour." then how would you respond? (the $150 per hour is not an exaggeration)
"and that they should bugger off."
No, I told them that it's not my concern, and that they should do the work if it's their concern. I said patches welcome, so if they help then I'll care a bit more.
"You really think that's going to motivate someone to help you?"
Do you really think it's going to motivate me to care more if all you're doing is criticizing? After hearing the first 10 complaints, things become tedious quickly. Especially if people *still* criticize me even after having put so much time and effort into helping them, for free.
Hey, but maybe it's just me. I suppose you don't think "screw them" if everybody's constantly criticizing you, even after having spent a lot of effort into addressing those criticisms... or do you?.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree with both points.
(1) There are enough universally applied usability rules to allow you to design an application for well over 90% of end users. I will go out on a limb and say that if you want your software to grow and evolve, you will make it usable. This means that you will try your best to minimize what your target audience needs to learn in order to use it. Poor usability simply means you hope someone else will do the work.
(2)Designers design. Coders code. Each is good at their own job. What is important is good communication between the two. As long as one does not try to tell the other how to do their job, things will be fine. What is needed is simply a level of respect and appreciation for the abilities of the two fields. When they work well together is when you have successful projects.
I do agree with your point of learning "the Windows way" being pointless. I'd also like to extend it to learning things "the Apple way", or any other way. That said though, I do think that a lot can be achieved by taking the good points of each and iteratively applying them - Apple is good at identifying stuff to do in the background. Windows is good at making everything explicit. While there is no one size fits all solution, open source can learn from the good points (and mistakes) of the others.
A usability issue so widespread I lost all hope (Score:5, Interesting)
One doesn't have to look far to find small but serious usability issues in open source software.
For example, did you hear about Fitt's Law [asktog.com] and "mile high menu bar [joelonsoftware.com]"/ "infinite size widget" effect?
For detailed description, see e.g. this Ubuntu bug [launchpad.net].
It turns out that while the Windows and Mac software got this right (at least with respect to scrollbars), massive amounts of OpenSource software (even high profile projects for Gtk/Gnome and Qt/KDE, like Gnumeric, Gnucash, OpenOffice, Konqueror or Kword) add an idiotic small border to their document area that seems to serve only one purpose - prevent this usability effect and make all users' lifes harder.
BTW, I highly recommend Joel Spolsky's "User interface design for programmers" - that's the very least a coder could do to educate himself in the area of usability. The book is very interesting, easy to read and quite short.
Re:A usability issue so widespread I lost all hope (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW if someone says that I should have filed proper bug reports, note that the bug reports concerning this problem have been reported a long time ago to relevant [kde.org] bugzillas [gnome.org].
What those issues need is a dedicated and experienced Gnome/KDE programmer to step in and solve them (I am not one).
Re:Poor usability? (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that if you looked closer, you would find that those are not at all the same audiences. In any area, you will find extremes on either end. Look at home theater systems. My wife's ideal remote control would have four buttons- power, play, pause, and volume. On the other hand, there are people out there who actually care about adjusting the balance of the surround sound speakers, picking alternative menu settings on their DVD's, and a variety of other details that my wife never wants to be bothered with. "Usability experts", at least of the variety that work on the GNOME project, don't seem to understand that there is a range of users that they have to support (or at least, should want to support) and seem to aim cleanly for the software equivalent of my wife's remote control. For the most part I've been happy with the improvements that the GNOME developers have made over time, but there have been a number of times that the "more options == less usability" dogma has resulted in the removal of options making a certain program no longer useful to me. Note the distinction there. In those cases, it didn't matter to me whether the new version was more or less usable than the previous version. What mattered was that as a result of the change the new version could no longer acceptably perform the task that I had previously used it for.
For my part, I think that this author has done a pretty good job of pointing out the problems with the current approach and potential solutions (with one exception- I see no difference between his supposedly conflicting mindsets of "show me the code" and "patches welcome"- to me they both say the same thing) but if the "progress" that we have seen so far is any indication, there is a part of me that would rather that developers ignore him and stick with "software by geeks for geeks" until somebody figures out a better way to balance usability and utility. I do think that there is room for a lot of improvement in usability yet, but I'd like to see it happen in a way that doesn't alienate the people who have already been using the software for years.
Re:Poor usability? (Score:4, Interesting)
.
The problem is that the Moz Foundation began with a massive infusion of cash and has $70 million or so in new money coming in each year.
Moz is a full time professionally staffed organization with broad resources.
The problem is that funding and technical support from Big Daddy Warbucks - Google, Sun, IBM - all the usual suspects - is the exception. Sourceforge is the rule.
The problem is that as a client OS Linux has a 0.8% market share. Operating System Market Share [hitslink.com] I hope you can forgive me for saying so, but that isn't much to show for seven years hard work.
Vista should have a 20% share in the Net Applications stats before year's end.
Given the weakness in the world economy, that is a number Microsoft can live with. God knows its returns are looking better than Sun's, with profits down 73% last quarter, and no good news in prospect.
The Mac appears to be stagnating, and its reputation as the "high priced spread" may be to blame.
But that just takes you back to the same old question.
If the problem isn't with the UI and isn't with the installer and isn't with the apps why isn't Linux on the desktop gaining any traction?
Maybe if MS/Apple shamed us into it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sadly, you may be right about this, judging by the vast majority of responses from developers in this article thread so far.
Almost as one, the FOSS developers here seem to have responded (paraphrasing): "Nobody is paying me for this work, so I'll be darned if they're going to tell me how the UI should be designed for usability." And even some non-developers have defended that stance.
This suggests that, indeed, there may be no solution to the problem coming from the community of FOSS developers itself.
But what if we were shamed into it?
What if Microsoft, or Apple, came out with a public statement that "FOSS products have extremely poor usability, because their developers refuse to accept usability input." It would be hard to defend against such an accusation, since we have almost no cases of devs accepting input from non-devs.
This would cause a huge uproar, I'm willing to bet. Maybe that would shake us out of this impasse.
Motivation (Score:3, Interesting)
I think one important aspect is motivation. And this is wider than just open source software. I think everybody would like their software to have better usability. But, in the end, your resources are limited. So you are going to do the things you are most motivated to do. Improving software usability apparently simply doesn't rank that high.
On the other hand, I have to agree with other posters that usability depends on your users (give me programmable interfaces over GUIs any day, but I know others have the opposite preference) and that a lot of open source software actually does very well as far as usability is concerned.
Re:Style over substance? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most UI designers I've met are not good graphic designers, and most good graphic designers I've met are not good UI designers.
Spot on. I am a UI designer. I have no clue how to use Photoshop, and I don't need to know because that's what the graphic designers use.
I just wish the "creatives" hadn't hijacked the word "design" (and "creative" for that matter).
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
The mentality is actually: "If it works for me, why should I spend time making it work worse for me?"
That's precisely the point; random comments without a great deal of thought (which are usually the majority in my experience) aren't a useful contribution. I personally have no problem with sustained, detailed, well thought-out usability suggestions and comments on projects that I maintain, but these are often few and far between.
.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed. The best source of ideas on improving the user interface of an application comes not just from UI 'experts,' but from the actual users of the program.
This isn't a question of foss vs commercial software (I can name a few of both categories with horrible/buggy UIs), but an issue of design philosophy. If the developers are open to constructive feedback (and yes, not all design comments are constructive), then they will make a better program.
Re:A usability issue so widespread I lost all hope (Score:3, Interesting)
I will have a look at this for KDE.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
That depends, it's not always that straightforward. A while back, I reported a bug to the coder on a program I use, when I reported it, I wasn't sure whether it was a bug or whether the button was labeled in a confusing way. It turned out to be a bug, but was indistinguishable from an UI problem.
I personally try whenever I can to include a suggestion about fixing it. The suggestion isn't always the best, but when I can come up with a suggestion it makes it a bit more clear to the person that's hopefully going to fix it what the real problem is.
That being said, sometimes there is no way of providing a suggestion, usually because the UI is so confusing that somebody without knowledge of the internals doesn't have even the slightest idea about how the UI is supposed to work.
Re:Maybe if MS/Apple shamed us into it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Can you provide some examples of highly constructive and polite UI discussions? I do very little GUI-related work; I'm curious to see the proposals and discussions.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
Me thinks is (justified) laziness. I'm a front end developer so I have to deal with the usability (and prettiness) of my company's applications.
I don't think it is a matter of lacking understanding usability. Firstly I know usability when I look at it. Things like following Fitt's law, using CUA shortcuts, ubiquitous undo, ubiquitous copy/paste, ubiquitous autocomplete, ubiquitous drag+drop. I know all that shit. Secondly they are *using* their software, they know when things could be better. ...but...
In my work, I do loads and loads of screens and dialogs that are going to be used once a month by administrative personal. My time is invested in making front ends for everything that management, marketing, HR or R&D could fancy to tweak.
There simply is no time to make things as pretty or as usable as I know they should be. As soon as an interface is usable at all, I'm moved to the next feature/project.
So, I think this is what happens to many OSS projects. You can spend all afternoon making that widget just perfect or you can play with the kids at home.
On the other hand, When talking about gui apps with the back end guy, it really seems he is usability-blind in *some* respects. His idea of usability is to have dozens of microscopic buttons in auto hiding panels but then again he's KDE and I'm Gnome so it is expectable. It really seems to be a matter of taste, and free weekends...
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:1, Interesting)
Nah, mod parent (and gp) down.
On the contrary. Most programmers can do (and do in fact) design. Hell, *anybody* can design with a little common sense and some "inspiration" from similar stuff. You won't get perfect stuff, but if it's good for me it can be enough for most people most of the time.
The real problem is that almost no designers can program, even the simplest thing in Visual Basic. And are proud of it. Kudos to the few ones that can.
Re:Usability is a matter of opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
They are taking about UI and usability as if its a solved problem. Its not even close to a solved problem.
A good example is my mum using windows vista. It was more than different enough from XP that she could not use it at all (we got as far as, "this is firefox, now you can use the internet"). I find word imposable to use, it never does anything *i expect* it to do. Then there the whole host of tasks that are not simple to visually represent on a screen.
One of the easiest system i have ever used was a older radar system from a F16 and IANARO (Radar Operator). It had buttons around the side that told you what they did much like ATM machines.
Personally we need a lot more experimental design rather than just blindly sticking to current UI dogma. An example that comes to mind is perhaps the wii.
No, not really (Score:3, Interesting)
If any chemist had the attitude of some of us software nerds, he'd most certainly be counted as an elitist dick.
Yes, a non-chemist can tell you that the floor cleaning solution doesn't do this or that. It's then your job to see exactly how it fails there, and if you can improve the formula, and if it's worth improving it. E.g., if it doesn't kill some germs, it's useless in a hospital. If it actually ends up a nutrient for a bunch of harmful germs, then you have an even bigger problem. If it's highly toxic or caustic, well, you've reduced its usefulness for a lot of situations. Etc.
If you end up dismissing it as "unless you can tell me exactly what formula to use, and the exact manufacturing process for it, STFU" -- which, again, is an attitude quite common in software -- then you are an unhelpful and unprofessional dick.
Ditto for any other industry. When MRSA appeared, the antibiotics industry set to try to find an antibiotic that kills them. They didn't go "if you can't make a better antibiotic yourself, STFU." Yes, probably the users didn't know _why_ Methicillin doesn't kill this strain of Staphylococcus Aureus, or how to fix it. Which is why they reported the problem and let the experts fix it. Otherwise they'd have just made their own medicine in the first place. And from there it's the expert's job to figure out the exact details and how to fix it.
Your job is to take that, essentially, bug-report or change-request, and see what can be done about that. Sometimes nothing at all. Sometimes it's not a bug. But nevertheless, it's a piss-poor defense to expect that the user fixes _your_ bugs, and that only people who can fix it are allowed to offer feedback.
And, look, I'm not saying that you shouldn't take pride in your work or skills. But more people need to realize that a bug report isn't an evil personal attack, nor trying to make you look bad, or anything. You don't need to get into an "well, _you_ can't even code that much, so STFU" counter-attack. Yes, you know more about programming than the user who filed that bug report. The knows it too. Otherwise he wouldn't need your tool or your help in the first place. Being helpful isn't some kind of loss of face, that's all I'm saying.