How Configurable Should a Desktop User Interface be? 550
The Original Yama writes "In the world of user interface design there are two main schools of thought. The former maintains that the environment must be flexible and configurable enough to adjust to a user's needs. The latter takes the opposite perspective, arguing that many of today's user interfaces have become bloated and overloaded with features, and consequently have become difficult to maintain and use. KDE developer Mosfet shows how the KDE Project has managed to bridge the gap between the 'highly configurable' and 'less is more' camps."
Read here for the continuation of the discussion (Score:5, Informative)
http://www106.pair.com/rhp/free-software-ui.html [pair.com]
In fact, this news submission doesn't even include the rebuttal [mosfet.org] written by Mosfet two days ago, answering to Havoc Pennington's article, as linked above.
pots and kettles (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on, guys, it's nice that Gnome and KDE bring a Windows/Macintosh-like desktop to Linux--lots of Windows refugees will be reasonably happy about that. It's also nice that some egregious usability problems, present in earlier desktops, have been fixed. But let's not pretend that there is anything fundamental being done here other than decent software engineering and avoidance of basic usability blunders.
To do substantially better, we will have to jettison the current straight-jacket of separate C/C++ applications and move to entirely new software architectures. And then, the distinction between "configurability" and "programming", between "user" and "programmer" will pretty much disappear.
Re:pots and kettles (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a prediction: the moment you succeed in making the distinction between "user" and "programmer" disappear, most of your potential users will disappear with it. Almost all of them who are not also programmers (in the old, pre-disappearance-of-the-distinction-between-users -and-programmers, sense), in fact.
Configurable desktops give users choices, and users like choices provided they're easy to make and easy to undo. Programming is about making decisions which are often hard to make and hard to undo. Unlike selecting a theme for a desktop, which is a matter of taste and the whim of the moment, programmers have to try to get lots of complicatedly interdependent things right in ways that matter.
I look forward to the first release of Tunes [c2.com] - hopefully some time before my retirement - with great anticipation, but at best such "entirely new software architectures" will empower some users do some things that they used to need to be programmers to do.
Re:pots and kettles (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see why. Just because they can easily modify and extend something doesn't mean that people have to do it. Microsoft Office, for example, comes with a complete programming environment built in, but users don't seem to mind. In fact, many non-programmers program in it. It's just that such facilities need to become better and need become pervasive.
Re:pots and kettles (Score:4, Interesting)
The point is simply: there are other approaches to building GUIs than the huge and inflexible C/C++ systems people are building now. And if customizability and user-level programming aren't reasons enough, simply the long release cycles and the fact that UI experts can't fix the software themselves are reason enough to look for different approaches.
depends (Score:3, Insightful)
jsut a thought, at least
xao
Keep it simple stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no shortage of 3rd party utilities to modify a your desktop to your liking. Keep everything modular and people can add what they need when they need it.
Re:Keep it simple stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
These sorts of things are fine for advanced users, but your average Joe will balk when attempting to edit even the most simple of text configuration files.
Much experimentation will be needed for this.
a little karma whoring (Score:3, Informative)
http://indiestep.sourceforge.net/
i recomend this...
xao
Re:Keep it simple stupid (Score:3, Informative)
The primary goal all OS vendors...
Keep in mind that an Operating System is NOT a GUI.
Re:Keep it simple stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Gnome 3.0 Nautilus will do non-linear video editing and have a SETI@home client built in as wee as integration with sendmail
KDE 3.6 will have built in SDL and drivers for Nvidia Geforce cards as well as adding at least 60 more blinking and beeping lights to notify the user that the program is in fact starting, along with instead of fading menus we will get particle trace menus that solidify from a roaming desktop cloud.
The feature adding is getting rediculious. Nautilus needs to be ripped out of Gnome COMPLETELY and returned to (gasp) the state of a FILE MANAGER.
KDE needs to remove 50% of the useless eye candy that slows it down horribly.
I'm using Slackware 9.0Beta and KDE3.1 is horribly slow on my baseline testing computer. A 256 Meg P-II350. yes that is a lower machine but if linux cant run decent on it then what's the point...Because Windows 2000 does.
Gnome is faster UNTIL you fire up the Nautilus nightmare... I cant wait for them to add the Gecko engine into it so I can render and author HTML from my file manager!... NOT.
The arms race of "we got more features" is getting silly. Configuration dialogs and ease is one thing that is important. everyone wants that.
What is keeping Linux off of Joe Computer's hard drive is the fact that 99% of the linux software DOES NOT HAVE AN INSTALLER. fix this one thing (Ohh I forgot Loki did) along with the dependancy hell that makes windows look well though out (If you use a non standard lib INCLUDE IT WITH YOUR SOFTWARE!)
Dont get me wrong, I absolutely love linux. but things are getting way out of control. we are almost ther eand could be there in a matter of days if all app developers stopped for a few minutes and downloaded and used the loki installer (or other installers available) and figured out how to seperate enterprise class Linux like we use today and reduce it to the braindeadness of XP home.
the last part (short of an ipchains gui... that would be cool) is something I never want to see... linux made so insecure that it's like any home version of a Microsoft OS..
phrase (Score:3, Interesting)
Did the phrase "OS X" pop into anyone's head when they read that line? I sincerely hope that we've reached a turning point in UIs, and that people start thinking about efficiency and speed instead of bouncing transparent smoothed faded noisy two-toned etc. etc. junk.
Re:phrase (Score:2, Interesting)
If you want to talk bloated let's discuss plain old X. I mean, X _defines_ bloat.
Re:phrase (Score:4, Interesting)
"Efficiency" and "speed" sound like the excuses people give me for using something ugly and horrible like FVWM95 or twm. I spend a lot of time using my computer, so it makes for a nicer experience if the colors aren't retina-burning and fonts are nicely smoothed and so forth.
I like when my house looks nice...don't you? I don't place function before form when it comes to my house--there is a balance. I think OS X has achieved that balance. Some might argue Windows XP placed form before function. Linux is most definitely function before form.
Re:phrase (Score:4, Insightful)
"Efficiency" and "speed" are the result of "thinking" about the "system". You can build fast-and-pretty systems just as you can build slow-and-ugly systems.
Re:phrase (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus my house is pleasant to live in AND look at, while being cheaper than the "standard" house to build and own and will be in good enough condition to hand down to my grand kids.
I configure my computer interface, as much as I can, in the same manner.
A salt box is practical and may conform to current fashion trends, but has continued to look classically good for nearly 400 years. Although a bit dour for some the Scottish Castle on the Moor has continued to asthetically please for a thousand years, and people will spend millions just to possess one.
It'll will still look good a thousand years hence, and perhaps will even still be standing.
Whereas today's "good looking" interface will simply look "Oh so early 21st century" five years from now.
Get a Cord L29. Nobody's built a better looking car in 75 years.
KFG
Re:phrase (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see what's so "horrible" about them. FVWM95 pretty faithfully copies the appearance of Windows95, and twm is a very minimalist style. If you like other themes, icewm offers a lot of choices.
I spend a lot of time using my computer, so it makes for a nicer experience if the colors aren't retina-burning and fonts are nicely smoothed and so forth.
X11 applications, including window managers, almost always give you complete freedom in choosing colors (I generally prefer "neutral", which is something I need to configure specially on a Mac as well). As for font smoothing, it decreases readability, so it is generally not a good idea to enable it. The most readable on-screen fonts are hand-designed, non-scalable bitmap fonts.
I think you are confusing "stylish" with "effective". Many professional tools (cameras, race cars, etc.) aren't stylish or even easy to use, but they are highly effective.
Re:phrase (Score:5, Insightful)
I've turned full keyboard control on but I'm constantly presented by applications which refuse to focus to check box or radio button widgets with tabs. I can't even imagine what it would be like to use a mac if one were handicapped in any serious way. I have never had any problem using any PC OS without a mouse. On a laptop forcing a user to go to the trackpad to check a box before hitting enter should pretty much relegate doftware to beta status.
It wasn't until 10.2 that Apple finally standardized switching between open windows of an application with Option-~.
I had to install third party software just to get the dock on the right side (where as a poster below pointed out is where the mouse spends a lot of time due to scroll bars and volume icons being there by default).
I even had to create my own black tiff just to make the background black, Apple doesn't even let you select background colors (they use image files in their "solid color" option.
Also the horizontal lines on the default Aqua interface are in my opinion hideous. They make small text hard to read and don't offer any real advantage. Again it required third party software to install a theme that lacked the lines.
OS X is nice, but it is far from being the pinnacle of usability. If anything it is a clear example of an interface which has stressed learnability over usability far too much.
I'm not saying that GNOME hasn't had a lot of rough edges, but in it's current state of 2.2 it seems to have created a simple ui that is as learnable for novices as OS X. It seems to have done more work on acessiblity than any other desktop out there. But I can still define my own keybindings for sawfish if I so desire. It's just a pleasure to use if you're the sort that uses your computer daily.
Re:phrase (Score:2, Insightful)
On my girlfriend's 233 MHz iMac, she has no problems with any of this so called "bloat," running OS X 10.2. The windows drag, the dock icons bounce, the translucent menus pop up quite well. Not as snappy as a very new Mac, but 10x faster than a semi-modern version of KDE and GNOME performed on the same machine (under Debian 3).
You see, OS X doesn't have to pull the same kind of hacks as KDE does to get something as simple as a translucent menu. OS X just includes an alpha the background color of the menu. The core graphics engine knows about alpha and can deal with it well. KDE, on the otherhand, has to take a screenshot of the screen, blend it into the background color, text, and icon images of the menu. Each time you open one of these translucent KDE menus. Yeah, it sucks, but there isn't much else the KDE project could do, other than encourage switching to one of the hacked X servers with built-in alpha blending.
Not to sound like I'm on Apple's jock, but jeeze, there's ignorant and there's just plain slashdumb.
Adminsitration (Score:3, Insightful)
Most skins suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Most skins suck. (Score:3, Interesting)
You are describing a problem endemic to windows devolpers more than anything having to do ith UI's in general. Skins are a good idea.
Re:Most skins suck. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Most skins suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Bonus points for integrating a command line with the desktop, either as the background or in some toolbarish thing.
Mutually exclusive? (Score:5, Interesting)
- minimal
- typical
- custom
Minimal and Typical can configure many features of the product with a simple click. If you want total control, choose Custom.
Or, have your installer let the user choose Minimal or Typical, then customize from there.
Why can't this same type of system be used to configure a desktop UI?
Your options could be:
- Simple, lightweight
- Middle of the road
- Lots of eye candy, bloated
- Masochist
Oh, you mean... (Score:4, Informative)
...like what KDE offers a user on their first login?
The main control is a slider bar, with "very little eye candy" on one end, and "way too much eye candy" on the other. The drop-down "advanced" controls allow individual checkboxes for particular candy features; the slider just turns them on and off in groups.
Just don't take away features (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance, I sure miss the edge-flipping I used so much in sawfish/gnome1.2
Re:Just don't take away features (Score:3, Informative)
I'm content with Metacity. You can't drag an app to the edge of the screen and have the screen flip; but you can send the app to one of the other workspaces with a click of the mouse, and you can click on the little window representation in the Workspace Switcher and drag that to move a window to another workspace.
steveha
What about documentation (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up! (Score:5, Insightful)
It also makes it so that users from one system to another don't know how to use the UI.
Now, you can have high configurability, but in most cases THE DEFAULT configuration should be solid and easily available.
Simple configuration (like desktop colors, fonts, etc) should be easily available, but more advanced features should be kept for power users. And there should always be a quick way to "use the defaults" (like login dialog with a use default window mgr settings option).
It's not about keyboard shortcuts! (Score:3, Insightful)
Examples of configurable things that can impact documentation of a product are window managers / behaviours, configuring "single click / double click" functionality, skins, etc.
Imagine you change to a look and feel where buttons are triangles. But in an application, the triangle shape represents some "state" or "status" information. Now the super customizable look & feel clashes with your application.
There are much better examples of this, but it's way too late to think of many. The point is, I'm not only talking about shortcuts, but UI configurability in general.
Re:What about documentation (Score:3, Interesting)
You say "The Context Menu" offers this functionality, like you should in the first place. You probably picked the worst ever example of something that shoulnd't be configured.. left / right button swapping should *ALWAYS* be allowed, not everyone is right handed.
Simple vs. flexible (Score:3, Insightful)
It's starting to slowly get better, and some options can still be set with the gconf editor, but some are just completely missing...
Re:Simple vs. flexible (Score:2)
I've read through all of the "bug" threads where they explain viewpoints vs. workspaces and how the user should have forced edges for window movement...and you can just use a 16-keypress while dragging the mouse in circles...and you can still program it to edge-flip from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, but not 1 to 3 to 4 to 2 if you have a 2x2 workspace...and how you can edit all these highly elaborate header and config files...and no, the guy that took it out is just too lazy to make it work in the new system...and no, he's not too lazy, it's just that nobody wanted it in there...and no, look at this highly unscientific poll where everybody wants it...no, look at my poll, where everybody doesn't want it....
But, really. I don't understand why it was removed as an *OPTION* for those who would like to use it. It wasn't deprecated. There's no valid replacement and certainly nothing easily and conveniently available for even someone with half an understanding of what's going on. It is the major reason I haven't really jumped into RH8.
I just want my edge-flipping back.
GNOME 2 is doing it right (Score:4, Interesting)
First, you design things so that they just work the way most users expect. You run tests to make sure you have it right.
Next, you make preferences dialogs with the most common options in them. You do let users configure things, but you make sure you don't have ten million options to sort through to find the one you want.
Next, you make an "experts" configuration interface; it could be config files, but in GNOME 2 it is GConf. (GConf looks a lot like the Windows registry, but it isn't fragile and centralized, and at its heart it's actually config files.)
Last, you make the system modular so that the really dedicated can swap out a module if they want something really different. If you don't like Havoc Pennington's way of looking at things, you can run Sawfish instead of Metacity. If you don't like Nautilus, you can run Gnome Commander or many other file managers.
Back when I was running GNOME 1.x, I actually hated the excessive number of options. I could actually maximize a window just horizontally, just vertically, or maximize both! Now with GNOME 2, all I can do is maximize both... but that's all I ever wanted in the first place.
steveha
GNOME 2 is doing it right for _you_, not everyone (Score:5, Interesting)
By what standards? Your own? If it is to your own standards, then by all means, be happy you have the choice of _not_ running KDE at all :)
I think Daniel is on to something. I've used both desktop environments, and yes, I loved Gnome 1.4, and I hate Gnome 2. Why? Because it gets in the way with how I want my desktop to work. KDE provides the mechanisms to tweak how you want your environment to work. It's the first thing I did when I started KDE for the first time. After that, I never touched the UI configuration because it was _just_ right_ for me.
Also, my family here uses KDE and they never complained how it worked. They are used to macs, so I set KPersonalizer to use the Mac-like defaults. No problem at all, they were right at home.
And as for confusing options, well, tend to go explore in Kcontrol and change colors/icons whatever themselves, and they never had to call me over _once_. So the whole point is moot, for me, and my direct environment (a.k.a. family that use my systems).
I like KDE's flexibility. You hate "complexity". It all boils down to preference.
While I'm typing anyway, I might share an anecdote. At an internetcafe where I do some freelance work I set up some KDE kiosk-mode terminals (KDE 3.1), as a test to see if people would use them instead of the defacto policied-shut winders box. I set some up, with some nice apps (Kopete, Konqueror, Moz, Phoenix, kvirc, java stuff, flash plugins etc etc.), planted some icons on the desktop to start them, slapped a nice style on it, put some nice looking icon sets in there, and just let it sit to be used. They've been sitting in the shop for a few days now, running happily.
To my surprise, the customers liked the KDE boxes. Actually, they fight over who gets to use them! And of course there's the added bones of less headaches. The winders machines tend to clutter up so much at the end of the day, I need to zap them all and put a ghost image back for the next day. Never once was that needed with KDE.
It's just so cool how you can take _out_ KDE's flexibility of you need it. Does GNOME have a Kiosk framework like KDE's?
Re:GNOME 2 is doing it right (Score:3, Interesting)
Until you have to look in to those text files because you find out an error in a panel applet is causing a recursive panel crash. Have you looked at those things? Sure, they're text, but the identifiers used for some of the xml tags are like 50 characters long, meaningless, and they don't use any line breaks. Have fun trying to make sense of those when you edit them in your favorite text editor.
I actually use the maximize vertically and maximize horizontally all the time - they are very useful for poeple with big (multi-monitor) desktops or who otherwise like to keep more than one thing visible. I also like the maximize-fit similar options. So when I installed redhat 8 and saw these options were gone (because metacity had replaced sawfish) I was pissed. They actually removed useful functionality! Sure, maybe you hated them, but how hard is it to just not use them? Sheesh. The argument that these "extra" options are burdensome to users and maintainers just doesn't fly with me. I quickly reverted back to sawfish, but am dismayed to see that the nice, tested, functional and powerful sawfish window manager is now replaced in redhat by the new, untested, and IMO crippled metacity.
Configurability has always been a strength of linux workstation/desktop. Gnome2/redhat seem like they'd rather piss off their proven customers, long time linux users, in an attempt to woo windows users who probably aren't going to switch anyway. A bird in the hand and all that shit. Good luck trying to convince anyone that they've gone to far to simplify things, though.
Absolute configurability. (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is, this absolute configurability must come with absolute ease of use.
I should be able to set up my GUI to look like whatever I want. I could have it look like, I don't know, CowboyNeal, while the guy next door, using the same GUI, can have it look like a carbon copy of Windows.
However, both of us should be able to do it *easily*. That is, clicking on buttons in a dialogue box.
Note: I don't speak of creating graphics and icons and such 'easily'. That's another ballgame.
What I speak of is being able to configure everything. What mouse buttons do what. Where the buttons on the tops of windows are. What those buttons do. How my scrollbar looks. The background. What window frames look like. How window focus works. Blah blah blah.
KDE is the closest thing I've found to this. It doesn't have all the customizing I'd like, but it's the easiest.
Enlightenment was approaching this back in the day - the problem there was you had to go diving through text files to configure things.
An interface shouldn't be configurable at all (Score:4, Funny)
How that effects *you* is *your* problem.
(Please note that the above is not the opinion of managment and is a piece written by the author with his tounge planted a bit in his cheek as an illustrative example of the essential problem in a reductio absurdum sort of way and vaguely following somewhat unclear tenets of the Scoratic Method. It has come to our attention that the Socratic Method may be prohibited by law in Athens, so we advise our Athenian compatriots to don their helms of wisdom and avoid reading the above lest they fall into coruption and dissolution. Hail Athena! Sparta must die! Oh, sorry, got carried away a bit there.)
KFG
Gnome 1.4 - Gnome 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gnome 1.4 - Gnome 2.0 (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I couldn't stand GNOME 1.4. I didn't even give 2.0 a fair chance. But as soon as 2.2 came out I decided I'd give it a shot, and it's simply here to stay. I think the greatest feature is that there are no useless features. It's not the speed or flexibility that sucked me in, it's that everything "just works."
And I'm a computer geek. It's just that when I look at the default KDE desktop and the default GNOME desktop, I wonder to myself that anybody besides the "I use linux because I'm l33t" people actually says KDE is easy to use.
A more concrete example: Open up a Nautilus window and right-click on an icon of a folder. You'll see around 15 menu options, with spacing in sane places. Open up Konqueror and do the same, for the same folder. On my KDE installation, I get 25 options. "Open with Gwenview?" what the heck is that? Why would this show up on every folder?
Simply put, GNOME lets me do what I want, faster. If KDE has twice the configurability, it won't be able to let me do things as quickly. I agree that some people prefer configurability and some prefer simplicity (read: usability). So I choose GNOME. Don't try and convince me I made the wrong choice.
Sorry, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
KDE has lots of configurability and hides some of it to not scare people. Is this really worthy of an article? Does he really think he's found some new principle of design that he needs to share with everyone?
I rate his article:
0, Stupidly Obvious
-Erwos
Defaults are very important... (Score:5, Insightful)
--sex [slashdot.org]
Re:Defaults are very important... (Score:2)
Most people don't register because they *don't want to register.* Just as they don't register for the NYT. It's an anonimity issue, not an interface one. ( Ok, some of them don't register because they want to be jackasses, that's still an anonimity issue. And some who register don't seem to be put off about being jackasses at all).
I'd agree that most people don't change the defaults *much,* but you might be surprised over how adamant they can get about being able to make their few and minor changes.
The problem is that everyone's "can't live without" change is different.
For me it's background color ( who at MS thought that "teal vomit" was an attractive color?) and trashcan location (lower right, always. Period.)And every time I see something labeled "My" something or other I nuke that bastard as fast as I can. .
For you it might be a "start" menu. Me, I think Apple got it right the first time with a drop down menu bar, but I'll cope.
There's always some little thing about an interface that is just going to drive some people stark raving bugfuck. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to change these things.
Otherwise offices across the world are just going be to full of people shouting "Arrrrrrrrrrgh!" All day.
KFG
Re:Defaults are very important... (Score:3, Interesting)
If there's a good reason, if it's something that would really diminish the usability of the product to others, then it may be the best choice. Blackbox still has it's place, e.g. But this shouldn't be done for essentially arbitrary reasons. 10% here, 10% there, soon you don't have any user community at all.
So don't get rid of configurability just to get rid of configurability. One of the things that keeps me using KDE rather than Gnome is that I can't find the Gnome menu editor. I know it's there somewhere, but I can't find it. So I spend most of my time using KDE. (The menu editor used to be easy to find, but someone moved it. RedHat? Possibly.)
And don't change things just to change them. BlueCurve looks nifty, but I find it much less useable than the default KDE desktop. And having only generic names for programs it just atrocious! I've got 3 main text editors that I use, and I use different editors for different purposes. Don't just say "Text Editor"! It's an important difference whether it's gedit, kwrite, kate or nedit! KWord and Open Office Writer aren't the same program, and won't (by default) open each other's documents. So I want to know which one I'm choosing. I don't just want a word processor, I want a particular one!
Defaults are very important. It can take a lot of work to fix up a garbaged set of defaults. And if you can't, then the product may be essentially garbage, even if it's basically "good enough".
Thats exactly why I stopped using gnome! (Score:3, Interesting)
using gnome as my desktop.
Until gnome 2 came out.
Then I felt like the gnome team had somehow
managed to slap handcuffs on me!
Almost like a Windows gui...
Go mosfet!
KDE isn't so bad as I'd anticipated,
and while enlightenment is pretty,
and I wish I could *effectively* use enlightenment as my windowmanager in KDE (it hasn't quite worked for me) KDE is (nowadays) nowhere near as bad a slug as it used to be...
Except when I'm working diskless of course,
then its blackbox.
But notice the difference here, between Linux and certain proprietary OSs?
I have the choice. I can choose if I want gnomes less is more paradigm or kde.
In windows... I guess I could use windowblinds or desktopX or whatever its called, but they just change the way it *looks*...
KDE for Windows XP? Anytime soon?
Consistency is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem on most open systems is inconsistency, because there are many different interfaces. For example, on my Linux system, I've noticed almost half a dozen different file open dialogs. Any one of them would be OK (sure...some are better than others, but I could get used to any of them), but having all of them is a problem.
This situation arises because the user interface decisions are made by the developers of each individual application (either directly, or indirectly by which X toolkit they choose to use).
Here's what I want. I want to decide which file dialog I like, which scroll bar behaviour I like, what dohickeys are on the titles bars of windows, etc., and I want every program on the system to obey that decision when I use it, unless I specifically ask or give permission for that program to do something else.
this may sound weird... (Score:3, Interesting)
This means that experienced users have more power over the looks, while novices can still play with some things without risking to mess things up ("where did Solitaire go?").
And I'm not only thinking an "admin/user" difference, there may be many levels... for example, one level allows only to change colors, another the desktop theme, and yet another level lets you change how the menus behave. And so on... It *should* be possible with a good integration of UIs, although coming up with something effective and not bloaty will be a real challenge. Not to mention that you need to set a standard... and that can be fight
But I think Apple machines are going there. Everytime I touch OS X I get the feeling that everybody sets it up to their own taste, while in XP things are much more standardized. [Linux is of course free-for-all as you can code your own whatever.
What is truly important? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can never think of good subject lines... (Score:2, Insightful)
The user should be able to do whatever it takes to work better. As for the applications, I think this holds true too, to a lesser extent.
Very many tools seem to duplicate the workspace idea (Macromedia's MX suite comes to mind) so they should be configurable (to me, at least), but applications which don't replicate the workspace (e.g. a file manager, a text editor) shouldn't be user-configurable any more than an ink pen should be.
What's the task? (Score:5, Insightful)
AutoCAD, for example, provides a pretty busy interface that regularly overwhelms beginners. However, it is also a highly configurable combination of command line, toolbars, menus, and context menus, with both scripting and programming facilities built in. When a moderately advanced user starts tinkering with it, the interface can be customized to provide enormous productivity gains for that user. (On the other hand, woe to the drafter who sits down in front of someone else's custom set-up.) It's very complex, and when I was a drafter I learned to love it.
However, as a drafter I was doing very repetitive tasks... I had small tools that saved me a few keystrokes and big ones that saved me hours. If I hadn't been doing highly repetitive tasks which were subject to some optimization, all that interface customizability would have been for naught.
Does an MP3 player need much beyond simple controls and playlists? I don't think so. Much of the customization in a program that performs a simple task will amount to eye candy... useless, but fun.
Simple tasks generally call for simple interfaces, while complex (and especially repetitive) tasks call for major customizability.
Configurability = Good (Score:2)
Right now I am, (temporarily), on Gnome. (KDE3.1 really didn't like Mandrake 8.2 so I'm waiting for 9.1 to go back to KDE.) I feel like I'm working inside a box w/ no holes. I go to change something and I can't. I try to customize the way things work, I can't. I try to configure it so it feels like I have no resistance between me and my desktop, and, honestly, using gnome feels like I have to work against the desktop.
I agree, that people should have the option to configure everything configurable, that the options should not be out front and cluttering, but that they should be reachable and usable. The beauty of linux is that it's very easy to include other desktops. For me, I like using the gnome2 desktop manager launcher, KDE3 for my normal use, and Blackbox when I just want a small, simple desktop.
Less is more, more is more.. or is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
A UI has *lots* to tweak. pointers, buttons, windows. color, highlights, and now with 3d shading and drop shadows and etc etc..
Thing is most people dont change these things. Those who do usually go with 'sets/skins' and many of them are horrid evil monsters of the abyss.
Thing is do you really want to be able to configure all that stuff? With x-windowsyou can get in there and tweak everything. Thats all well and good. but who is gonna put a generic 'grandma' front end on that? And even if you have a nice screen to fiddle all the bits, will grandma even know what half the things are? Then you have the flip side of having almost nothing user configurable out of the box (Aqua). You can go 3rd party to go in there and chage the stuff, but then we are back the horrible skinning thing (as has been said elsewhere in this thread.
So the big question is how much is enough? How much is too much? Should anyone really waste the time letting people tweak everything? Does a compay that tries to make a coherent look and feel let people go and throw off the UI elements when they chose a 96 pt font for their "ok" button?
Mind you this is going to just get more fuzzy when the UI starts using vector 2d and 3d, and even more animated objects in the UI. Just wait untilyour head explodes when you see the pink hello kitty desktop of doom.
It's all been going downhill since... (Score:2, Funny)
True, you could set the drum with which columns to always punch, but just look at the price that we have paid for that little trade-off of convenience.
It's time we got back to basics.
Sam Nitzberg
Minimal! PLEASE! Gnome *and* KDE isn't it! (Score:2)
Then Gnome 2 comes out. What do I get? It's no Gnome 1.4! The memory monitor's radically changed, half the utilities aren't there, and it enforces a get-in-your-face, hide-all-the-options interface! DAMMIT! I don't want hide-all-the-options! I don't want get-in-your-face like RedHat does! I want simple! Clean! No clutter above or below, and NO STINKING FILE MANAGER INTEGRATED WITH THE BACKGROUND!!!!
So I try KDE for a while. I get less options (but they're all accessible), a screwed-up window manager (HEY! I'M USING OPENBOX HERE!!!!), a get-in-your-face UI, and the stinkin file manager integrated in the background.
ARGH!
So I'm back to using Gnome 1.4 for just the panels and Openbox for window managing.
Now, if I can get a panel like Gnome's that doesn't require Gnome or KDE, I'll be very happy to get rid of those libraries, install GTK+ 2.x, recompile everything, and be done with it.
Sheeple... now with more conformity (Score:2)
"Mosfet shows how the KDE Project has managed to bridge the gap between the 'highly configurable' and 'less is more' camps." "
fit in with this comment by Mosfet:
"KDE has always taken the approach that users will have different preferences on how they like to work so the UI should be as flexible and configurable as possible."
Where is ALL the aforementioned GAP BRIDGING?
Hidden somewhere in the subtext?
While I applaud the pretty interfaces that X-windows managers allow, most of them really overly complicate the issue for most people. One of the reasons (perhaps a minor one, depending on your opinion) that Linux has not taken off on the desktop, is that people/sheeple want conformity. They don't want a million different ways to embed an MP3 player in their desktops.
Configuring the task bar (Score:2)
The configuration tool let you change the colour of the task bar border. The second let you change the colour of the inside part. The third configuration tool was for if you wanted to use a bitmap instead of a colour.
Two of the three tools let you move the bar to a different side of the screen. One of the tools let you choose from five pre-set sizes for the task bar and the other let you scale it through a range of sizes. If I remember correctly the right click tool that let you decide whether you wanted to slide in and out.
Those were the good old days. Choices within choices. And everything came with a free surprise.
Developers are not the right people to decide (Score:5, Insightful)
Check this out to see a developers take on the whole "less-is-more" debate going on about Linux user interfaces
Now, I've no doubt he's a very gifted developer. But more often than not, a developers opinion on UI issues should be disregarded.
It's not because they couldn't potentially be good at it, it's because their brain is occupied with technical issues that have no relevance to an end-user.
Alan Cooper [cooper.com] has written some pretty fine books about these issues, which I'm sure any developer related to UI design finds very informative. Some of the anecdotes are hilarious.
Unfortunately, it seems that Human Interaction Design is still not very high on the list when people design a product, resulting in there not being very many people that have specialized themselves in this field. It goes without saying that finding the right people for such a job for open source projects is tricky, to say the least.
Re:Developers are not the right people to decide (Score:5, Insightful)
At every step of the way the world of open source and free software has done everything possible to keep us out of the process.
Re:Developers are not the right people to decide (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Developers are not the right people to decide (Score:3, Insightful)
Here a fair point you make is masked by the way you express it [kde.org]....
One quote from a gnome list:
I'm sure you mean well, but having studied Psychology (which I have also), and read some materials makes you better informed about usability, not an expert.
Also, if you want to see the state of Linux usability improve, talking on mailing lists is fine, but there's talk and then there's action. Have you sat down and written written patches for the GNOME HIG (there are plenty of bugs against it in bugzilla, no coding needed)? Have you taken an application and gone through filing HIG bugs? Have you learnt basic coding and fixed some applications yourself?
In general, Linux usability won't improve by people debating it on Slashdot, it'll improve when people take the initiative.
At every step of the way the world of open source and free software has done everything possible to keep us out of the process.
Sorry, that's not true. Go look at the gnome usability lists. They have several professionals on board, and some of the core coders have read up on plenty of HCI material.
CDE, IceWM, WindowMaker, Blackbox/etc (Score:3, Interesting)
The major problem with most guis, is speed. I want my data fast, I want to work fast. Heres some common problems I see.
1. Cut & Paste. I tend to use shift-insert/ctrl-insert more often than ctrl-x/c/v. Application tend to support which method the developer wants. Right mouse cut/paste/select all handy in windows, should be in more unix guis.
2. Taskbar, when having 20-30 applications open, i want quick access. Binding keys is ok for quick launch, but give me task bar, task list, or some other task type folder is really useful. Nice icons, animation is neat, but dont slow down my system, or get in the way.
3. Alt-tab. Pesky little windows key combo seems to be ingrained in my head. I love to alt-tab back to the last application. I know shift normally mean go backwards, but 3 key combos i tend to ignore.
4. Anti Aliased fonts. When you see them, its hard to go back to non-aliased fonts. Like seeing HDTV, its that much of a difference. BTW, terminal font is for terminals, I like the look of VGA font for my terms. Clear, easy to read, and a standard. Ansi VGA for terms only. (Linux console works, even use it on all my ssh programs.) Guess too much old school thinking ingrained in me, OS2 had the perfect font in its command shell.
5. Mouse, 5 buttons. For games or applications, having a button there makes a task quicker. (I know its not UI, but its input related..)
6. Pixel Snap. IceWM has it, and found a handy program for windows (allsnap) that does it. Make it easy to have multiple terminal windows open, and I dont have to align by hand.
7. Virtual Windows, neat idea, but I find myself wanting to see my apps on the screen. So I tile, and keep sections open that i need to see, most common, excel spreadsheets with datafill while i have open ssh working.
So having my little pics, it narrows my choices of which gui's I use. Mostly, Im sticking with WinXP with cygwin/putty for now. On the unix side, icewm or kde. Nice icewm is only 600K and does most of what I want. Blackbox can be configured with most of my choices also.
I think the biggest problem now is consistency, and these developers are working hard at adding options to fix that. And its only going to get Better.
Themers Anonymous (TA) (Score:5, Funny)
That was fine, but there was always more to do. Redesign some buttons here, alter a gtk theme to match the gnome theme there. Pretty soon I was out of control.
My rock bottom came when I downloaded the CVS source for e17. I spent day and night with it. All I ever talked about was Evas and Imlib2. My girlfriend left, I was fired from my job, friends eventually stopped coming round.
Then I met this guy named Bill. He helped me install Windows 2000 on my laptop and showed me how it was pointless to change any of the appearence settings because they all looked the same anyway. Thanks to him and the friends I've made in here I've been able to stick to word processing and other stuff on my computer, one day at a time.
Thanks for asking me to share.
There's nothing new here (Score:5, Insightful)
This article doesn't show anything of the sort. Having read the whole thing, it's just another article arguing that more configurability in KDE is better. There's nothing wrong with arguing this, but it certainly doesn't (successfully) explain how any gap is being bridged.
If anything, it again fails to solve the main problem that highly configurable interfaces have: That most people don't know what the best interface for them is.
If lots of configuration options are offered, people will choose what they think they like at the time. This doesn't mean they're right. It doesn't mean they'll get things done better or more efficiently. It doesn't mean they'll improve their reaction times with respect to Fitts law or Hicks law. It doesn't mean they'll have a better or more enjoyable experience using the interface. It doesn't mean they'll design a superior interface that'll prevent them from getting RSI or damaging their eyes. It certainly doesn't mean that someone else will be able to quickly and intuitively adapt to their interface, nor that they will be able to quickly and intuitively adapt to someone else's interface.
All that a configurable interface allows is for a user to change it to something that they think might be useful. Frequently, a person won't get around to changing the option, even if they realise they've made a mistake. Unfortunately, users aren't experts.
There certainly are problems that need to be solved, but the linked article doesn't solve anything.
The problem with everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, I think the larger problem is not so much configurability, but complexity. It's not a matter of how many options are there, but how those options are presented. The main problem with human beings is not that they can't deal with large amounts of data, but that they can only deal with small pieces of a large data set at a given time.
This problem encompasses not just configuration, but all desktop GUIs (even OS X). The Windows/Menus/Icons/Pointer is just too complex. There are too many widgets, too many places to access functionality, too many places to display information. For those of you on Windows (I feel your pain) fire up Windows Media Player. The interface is a nightmare. It's even hard for me to use! There are at least six different locations where controls are located. Information is displayed in multiple locations. It's just a mess. Then fire up Word. There are dozens of icons that have absolutely no recognizable meaning. The problem reaches critical mass in a program like AutoCad (I'm an engineering major, so I have a vested interest in seeing this UI mess disposed of as soon as possible!) Dozens of icons, all similar looking. Context menus that have no relation to the object being clicked on. Weird interactions between the command-line, menus, and context menus.
This interface complexity hinders not only ease of use, but efficiency. Think of what happens when your PC starts using the swap file. It spends all it's time trashing the hard drive instead of doing real work. When a user is confronted with all the gidgets in modern UIs, their thought process and efficiency slows to a crawl.
To ease the interface mess, we need to rethink how humans interact with the GUI. A next-gen GUI would have the following features:
1) Little to no "widgetry" visible on-screen. The user should be able to concentrate on what he's working on, rather than be distracted by UI information. Think "vi" vs "MS Word."
2) One point of access to functionality. Like "vi's" command line or Houdini's keyboard-menus.
3) Succinct context menus. Context menus should have no more than a half a dozen entries, and should only function as shortcuts for functionality accessible from the "common access point."
4) No more windows. Overlapping windows are just confusing and require too much user intervention. A next gen GUI should be based on a full-screen application mechanism. For the relatively few times when more than one application needs to be visible at the same time, mechanisms need to be provided to facillitate this. This is an example of optimizing for the common case.
5) More use of tabs. Tabs are a surprisingly easy mechanism for users to pick up. Note that all the navigation menus on the web are a version of the essential "tab view" concept.
6) Larger UI elements. Since the UI would only show the elements absolutely necessary at the moment, UI elements could be large, which greatly speeds up pattern recognition in the human brain.
7) More use of color. Humans are remarkably sensitive to color coding, but for some odd reason, current GUIs only use color for asthetic purposes.
8) More use of text. The human brain is a language processing machine. Current GUIs rely far too much on metaphors and other elements that require user training, instead of just plainly telling users what's going on. Take menu entries. Instead of being short and cryptic, they should be detailed and explanatory. Who cares if that makes the menu bigger. Are you looking at something else while you're reading the menu?
9) Seperation of "background" tasks from "foreground" tasks. KDE is doing a great job of this with it's notification bar programs for noatun and kopete.
10) More powerful application management. The user shouldn't have to manually manage applications. Some intelligence should be applied to keep running applications easily accessible. For example, when I'm doing research papers, the "taskbar" concept just plain can't handle the explosion of application windows.
11) Global workflow enhancers. Many of the workflow enhancers found in high-end applications like Maya and Photoshop, like info-bars, undo-histories, etc, could easily be applied to applications in general. A consistent set of workflow enhancers would greatly help efficiency, while reducing the burden on application developers to write these systems.
The overall point of this concept is to streamline the computer/human interface. It reduces the dependence on metaphors, which is hard for users to inderstand, and allows them to interact more directly. An implementation of this concept probably would not be intuitive. (BTW, intuitiveness is a sham. Nothing is intuitive, except the three built-in human actions, sucking, grasping, and cuddling.) It would require a modicum of user training. But with the large numbers of locations where user training is available, such as workplaces and schools, along with the rising number of computer-educated sons/daughters/grandchildren/friends/etc, such training should be acessible. Most importantly, teh features of the system are such that a minimum number of concepts are required to understand the whole system. Once those concepts are understood, the user can proceed without further intervention.
Re:The problem with everything (Score:3, Interesting)
3) Succinct context menus. Context menus should have no more than a half a dozen entries, and should only function as shortcuts for functionality accessible from the "common access point."
;).
Though it is not quite the same, this sounds an awfull lot like the menu-hiding 'feature' in MS Office. It's one of the first things I always turn off
In fact, it could be even worse if - depending on the context your're working in - menus randomly appear and disappear. One of the laws in graphical user interfaces is: keep it consistent. Apple does this perfectly: in MacOS the first two menus have always been and shall always be "File" and "Edit". Hiding and showing menu's and other widgets is not very consistent, and distracts the user.
4) No more windows. Overlapping windows are just confusing and require too much user intervention. A next gen GUI should be based on a full-screen application mechanism. For the relatively few times when more than one application needs to be visible at the same time, mechanisms need to be provided to facillitate this. This is an example of optimizing for the common case.
I think the maximize window functionality found in all of todays GUIs does this excellently, wouldn't you agree?
5) More use of tabs. Tabs are a surprisingly easy mechanism for users to pick up. Note that all the navigation menus on the web are a version of the essential "tab view" concept.
I fail to see what tabs accomplish that the Windows task bar or OS X dock doesn't. Tabs are used for switching between windows of a specific application, nothing more, nothing less. In fact, since tabs are an alternative way of switching between windows, the combination of the two (tabs and taskbar/dock) complicates matters even more.
6) Larger UI elements. Since the UI would only show the elements absolutely necessary at the moment, UI elements could be large, which greatly speeds up pattern recognition in the human brain.
Showing and hiding UI elements does not speed up pattern recognition, but slows it down, since the pattern keeps changing all the time.
8) More use of text. The human brain is a language processing machine
Bzzz... wrong. The brain is an image processing machine. Language gliphs happen to be images as well, but require more processing than clear, carefully selected icons.
Gnome-2.2 is goodness. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've come to expect a lot of bitching about gnome(-2.x) on slashdot, simply because the vast majority of users here are people who spend a LOT of time with computers. These are the people who bring up the dreaded workspaces vs desktops debate, bemoan the loss of edge-flipping, and berate the fact that you "can't do that neat thing I've always been able to do in WindowMaker." Others just shrug, smile patronizingly, and say "I don't see why everybody can't just use Emacs."
Ok, so, I have about 100 users in a large department all using linux -- currently both KDE and gnome-1.4 (rhl-7.3). All I can say -- I want an environment that doesn't require a computer degree to configure and operate it. Note -- my users are nearly all PhDs in Physics, or are on their way to obtaining a PhD in Physics, yet still they have trouble figuring out the interface. The notion of setting up our administrative assistants with a gnome-1.4 or a KDE workstation is bordering on silly at the moment.
However, looking at my shiny new gnome-2.2 installation, I must say that perhaps that is slowly changing. This looks MUCH more like an interface for the ordinary people who want to actually USE the applications, not hack them, or learn a separate programming language and a slew of wrist-numbing keybindings just to launch one successfully. Simplicity and responsiveness is the key.
Gnome is a very valuable project for those of us who are looking at maintaining a lot of desktops in a business or educational environment. Currently such setups are frequently limited to Windows or OS X, but both of these platforms come with a huge price-tag both in terms of the OS itself and in terms of admin time spent per each computer -- not only when it comes to the quickness of setup (remote customized pxe kickstarts vs. disk imaging, for example), but also in the area of patching and software maintenance (centralized package updating via RPM, including custom packages, vs... oh, hell, I don't know, everything I've seen on windows/osx is such an horrible hack). However, while administration benefits have been clear, adoption on the desktop has been slow to none, simply because there hasn't been a good, simple, and intuitive WIMP interface available for use on Linux for those who think of their computers as tools to do their day jobs and not in terms of a lifestyle or a political statement.
So, to those working on making GNOME a success on our business desktops I give a resounding cheer. To those who whine about workspaces vs. desktops, edge-flipping, and the fact that there are no longer five different clocks available for their panel -- I'm sure there is a windowing environment that will gladly welcome you. If you want eye-candy, look at Enlightenment. If you want a slew of features -- look at KDE. If you want lean-and-mean, look at WindowMaker and such.
But please don't abuse our cherished gnome developers if your favorite wm feature is not in 2.x, or that you cannot pass the --enable-throbbing-transparencies flags to applications any more. They are out to make a good business end-user desktop, and they seem to actually have a clue as to how to go about doing it. Now we need a gnome2-ified evolution and a decent gnome2-ified browser, and the underlying desktop structure is pretty much complete. Too bad OpenOffice(.org) is using its own widget set. I'm so tired of the "let's make our own widget set" mentality of modern projects...
Anyway -- Gnome2 developers: you are my heroes.
Either exreme is bad news (Score:3, Interesting)
On the ad-absurdium extreme of the customizable camp would be those who firmly believe that real users write their user interface from scratch. (the most fundamental stalwarts of this already extreme group would still like to get rid of those silly "high level languages" -- in the belief that only assembler gives access to the full power of the machine).
I haven't really delved enough into KDE and GNOME to decide which has produced a better compromise, but I am reasonably happy with what KDE allows me to stomp on.
And, of course, since it's open source, I still do have the choice of rewriting (or replacing) any part that doesn't modify to my satisfaction. (as long as I'm willing to read the dreaded highg-level-language source-code).
Is this really *that* difficult? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a hint: Stop tossing us unnecessary crap like network configuration tools for Desktop Environment A, B, and C. Stop giving us "wizards".
I keep seeing the argument that we need to make all of this easy enough for your grandparents to use, usually citing Windows as a basis for comparison.
Bzzt. Keep friggin' dreaming. My grandparents and my aunt both use Windows, and they still can't figure even half of it out. It doesn't matter what version; people who aren't tuned in to computers are either going to get it or they won't. No amount of helping them along or gentle pushes is going to change that. If someone has the drive to learn, they will. Our job, as users and developers, is to try and keep things flexible and useable with a minimum number of casualties. So what if my 86 year old grandfather isn't using Linux? Concentrate on the people who've converted from Windows seeking a better alternative. Worry about your existing and long-time users. If you alienate these people, you've lost already, and by that time, your grandparents won't give a shit and neither will anyone else.
Some of you are probably thinking, "Yeah, right on!" Here's where i'll probably piss you off, if I haven't already (though I have a feeling many of you already think i'm rambling about nothing).
Desktops need to be attractive, at least to an extent. My thought is, if i'm going to be staring at something for hours on end, I don't want it to look like a remnant of a black plague victim. It doesn't have to look like some kind of weird coloring book gone awry (*cough*longhorn*cough), but it does have to look nice enough that i'm not gouging my eyes out. And really, is this so difficult to do without bogging down system resources? Think about it.
To keep things minimal but customizable, allow the user to change the colors, fonts, background, window borders; the basics, so to speak. Allow the use of gradients so things are a little easier on the eyes, and allow anti-aliasing control. A small bit of code will take care of transparency control for the applications menu, and the file manager and taskbar can be left to third-party applications and/or plugins. If you want to attract the more "non-geek" audience, offer up a package that has all of that stuff pre-built in as a bundle, so they don't have to do any footwork hunting for new capabilities.
And for chrissakes, stop with the ugly application interfaces. IRIX, Solaris, etc. are a good example of what i'm talking about, but there are *many* on Linux/BSD/etc. A lot of people could take a nod from some of the apps out there for QNX. Nice looking, but very clean, well-laid out, and uncluttered. In particular, I like phirc, but even if you don't like that specific look, I think it gets across what i'm talking about, if only a little. Better still, stop offering applications that are tied to ONE desktop. This whole "applications for Gnome" and "applications for KDE" thing is bullshit.
We've already got most of this with window managers like Blackbox, Fluxbox, Waimea, etc. In some cases, things are only halfway where they should be (in my eyes, anyway), in others, they fall very short. However, I still have to ask myself, with almost every desktop i've used, "what the hell was the developer thinking?"
I ask this even more with 99% of the applications i've used.
So perhaps the question shouldn't be about desktops being bloated so much as software in general, and the design problems that consistently plague them? Just a thought.
You Know What I Think? (Score:3, Interesting)
usability (Score:4, Insightful)
No NO no NO NO ! Users do not know anything about what makes an interface tick!
Painting your car in stripes, adding fake exhaust pipes, Wunderbaums and antennae does NOT make it faster or easier to drive. Yet some people believe it does. They are called Rice Boys.
In my experience, cars that have been designed by engineers and usability people (from Lexus, Mercedes, what have you) are actually easier, safer and more enjoyable to drive than a Rice Boy Honda. These designers have spent decades on studying users and their habits. They are paid well for ensuring that all the buttons and controls you need are within an inch of your fingertips, and those you don't need are further away, but still within reach. These cars are also more expensive, but you get what you pay for. If your job is to drive a car for eight hours a day, you'd better get the most well-designed car you can afford; the choice between a Rice Boy Honda and a Mercedes should not be hard.
In the same way, if your job is to work with a computer for eight, ten or twelve hours a day, I'd expect you to get the best user interface you can afford. Anything else is plain stupid. How can you seriously believe that painting your user interface in stripes and adding blinken lichts and tons of eye candy would make it any faster, easier or more enjoyable to use?
Several years ago, Steve Jobs was heavily criticized for his decision to make the Mac OS X "Aqua" user interface look nice. Mac users thought that if Apple engineers spend their time on creating lickable buttons, they will forget about the usability. Their doubts were well founded, but luckily turned out to be unnecessary. The Mac OS X UI is a joy to use because of the underlying consistency, not because of the overlay of lickable buttons.
Until the KDE developers grasp that, there will be no Linux on the desktop.
--Bud
mutually exclusive? (Score:3, Insightful)
"highly configurable" and "less is more"? If you ask me, "highly configurable" by definition, incorporates "less is more". Or else it wouldn't be highly configurable...
Heh, on a side note I find it Ironic: OSes you deem bloated and "highly configurable" I have actually used the term "Less is MORE" when describing. Like OSX, even in it's simplest state, it uses MORE processor cycles looking pretty than I would ever want my machine using. At a conference I ran a TOP under OSX and watched as I simply drug a window around; it ate 85-90% of the CPU!
Less can definitely still be way too much!
I use XP at work which I deem "highly configurable" because I run it bare, looking indistinguishable from NT4.
Configurability YES. Clutter NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
- How much time do you actually spend setting up your desktop/preferences/themes/etc... If you're like me, once in the beginning, and very occasionaly a little tweak.
- If you take the previous point into account, don't you agree that these settings should not clutter up your UI, and be stashed away somewhere?
- The more choices are on the screen at any given time, the more time you loose making up your mind. You don't need the distraction of having to deal with prefs when working on something.
So, I personally generally like them "invisible" - give me good defaults, and no boatloads of pref applets. Gnome2.2 does this pretty well imho.
Now when I DO want to change something, I would be very annoyed if I wasn't able to. However, I think most people that want to change their settings are a bit more advanced (caveat: for this premise to be true you better have to have good defaults). I very much doubt that these advanced users (what mosfet refers to as the userbase that want their prefs) can't handle changing the settings in a gconf-like registry. After all, you don't need to do it that often.
If changing a certain setting in Gnome becomes very popular, someone will write a little frontend for it, which over time gets integrated in Gnome proper I suppose - that's what happens if there's enough demand.
Bottom line: make customizing possible, but resist exposing the prefs in the UI when it doesn't make sense to. The newbies and experienced users get something with good defaults that they can use right away, the experienced users additionally have the option of diving into gconf-editor when there's no pref applet for what they want. Since they do this really rarely it shouldn't be a problem, and it's a bunch of clutter, implementation work and testing that's avoided.
That way everyone's happy. Newbies, experienced users, and the developers/designers that actually have to implement and test the little UI's that end up everywhere and untested because it's such an obscure pref very few people use it.
Of course this only works if Gnome does actually expose the needed prefs through gconf - but since I've been using Gnome2(.2) I haven't found one I needed or wanted that wasn't there yet, so I suppose for this user they're doing a good job.
Configurability YES. Clutter NO.
Re:Configurability YES. Clutter NO. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's all about the users (Score:5, Insightful)
Most non-technical users don't configure anything. They just don't see the need. If it works, why change it? Witness the enormous number of Windows users who have MSN as their IE homepage, who have Tahoma (or Arial for older Windows versions) as font, and who have the standard icky-turquoise, blue, or Teletubbyland backgrounds.
Hence, as long as the defaults are right, there's no great need to spend months umming and ahhing over just how configurable the interface should be, because most of your users won't even bother looking for the controls, they'll just take what they're given. Let's call these people the appliance users, because they tend to treat a computer as a simple appliance to get a few simple tasks done, and outside of doing those tasks they tend not to play much (apart from Solitaire and Minesweeper!). Some of these people are probably better off with a simple appliance-like interface like OEone, rather than a classical WIMP interface. Altogether, the appliance users are maybe 85% of all computer users, possibly more.
On the other hand, it seems as though technically-minded users prefer greater configurability rather than less. They do not mind spending half a day setting up their work environment, because they feel it gives them extra comfort and productivity in the long run, or simply because 'it's cool to make things work the way I want them to'. Let's call them power users, because frankly, that's what they are. This group is somewhere between 5-10% of all computer users, but are by far the most influential on the purchasing decisions of others because of their knowledge about computers.
Then there is a third large group, who sit somewhere in the middle. This group looks for a modicum of flexibility but also looks for a sane set of defaults, enough customizability to make a GUI their own but also to have an environment which 'just works' to get on with the things that they need to do. Let's call these people the 'happy medium' users. These users probably make up somewhere between 5-10% of all computer users, a similar figure to the power users. Apple specializes in catering to this group of users, and probably has a hold on half the users that belong to this group. With MacOS X, Apple have begun to branch out into catering for power users too.
This is what I don't understand about Gnome 2's change in direction: all the major GUIs make an effort to satisfy the applicance users simply by having an initial interface that's not too overwhelming and by having a sound set of defaults. Linux GUIs have made great strides towards satisfying this group in the last year or two - I think there's not much to choose between KDE and Gnome for this group, to be honest. Linux GUIs have, previously, always been good at satisfying the power users. However, Gnome 2 appears to have all but dropped support for power users in favour of catering for 'happy medium' users.
This doesn't make good strategic sense. They have dropped support for one group (power users) in favour of another group, less influential on computing purchasing decisions ('happy medium' users) of approximately the same size. They haven't gained any numbers in doing so, but instead have upset and annoyed a lot of their existing users, most of whom were influential 'power users'.
And why have Gnome done this? Sadly I think it is because their usability team is in awe (for evidence, see for example the essentially pointless button order switch to copy Apple's way of doing it) of what Apple has done with their GUI but don't understand that Apple is a niche player with a GUI that is heavily adapted towards their target market - the 'happy medium' user.
This is why I cringe whenever I see usability engineers talking about Apple all the time. Sure, MacOS has a nice GUI, but without understanding the reasons why Apple took the decisions which make it a nice GUI and the context in which those decisions were taken, you have learnt very little about it at all.
The reason we use windows (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now, it would cost me more to install a free OS, train, configure and maintain it, than to just use Windows to begin with. We do use Star Office instead of MS Office on most boxes that need it, saving us a wad now. That was an easy transition. We have switched most of the servers over to Linux servers, because they offer better performance on lower end machines, allowing us to recycle machines effectively. The problem isn't the Linux kernel, or supporting programs. The problem is the GUI. Since we don't use the GUI on servers, its not relevent. Since the users depend on the GUI on the desktop, it is very relevent.
Eventually, Linux will be more cost effective, and I will be the first to change every machine. Once the GUI doesn't have 1000 options to dig through and the applications don't all work with different hotkeys, that will be the time to switch. And while I am not a MS fan, the fact is they make a pretty damn good GUI. Give me a bonified Windows 95 (not 98+) interface on a Linux kernel, not just one that kinda looks like it, but one that WORKS like it, and I will give you a wad of cash happily.
Some thoughts on the whole messy situation. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of the secrets of interface design, listen carefully: everyone is right.
I have been working on a next-gen OS user interface for about two years in my spare time. Some of you might remember a posting from a week or so ago; I asked what a UI designer could do to make some positive contributions to an Open Source project (and I got some great answers). Now, I'm going to ask for some more advice, and hope that this story isn't so far down in the queue that it gets overshadowed.
First some backstory.
This interface I've designed works on two guiding principles. The first being that users no longer need the desktop metaphor. It does away with it completely. The second principle involves chaging how you work by tracking different paths of behaviour on the part of the user. For instance, the OS tracks a History of Everything. If you've ever used Photoshop's History palette, you have an inkling of what I'm talking about. You always have available to you a branching diagram of where you've been and what you've done, into the past (to a certain extent), and have the ability to change your path or backtrack and try a new method.
I've also made extensive use of modern computing interface ideas. You still wave a pointer around using the mouse, and control things with the keyboard, as there is a certain amount of knowledge that cannot really be 'undone' in the typical user's mind. This is not a bad thing, but it does make it more difficult to truly break new ground. One instance in my project is the use of GUI Windows - I've basically done away with them in favour of Pie Menus. Window-pane type objects still exist when appropriate, but generally are reserved for Applications (another paradigm that is necessary out of pure economics).
Anyways, I don't want to give away a whole lot here yet as I'm still finishing it. It's in the form of a Flash projector that you can run full-screen to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Now, my question (still with me?)... do you, Slashdotters, think that you would truly be willing to 'put up' with a radically new interface paradigm, if you thought it was worthwhile? I know the question sounds a bit spurious, "of course I'll use it if its better". But you need to think. The very limited testing I've done with a small group of people has had great feedback, but also great growing pains. The grip that your UI habits have on you are incredibly strong. The vast majority of frustration amongst users occurs when they become accustomed and familiar with a particular function, and then it changes on them. Even if the change is better, it is fequently painful for the user -- even to the point where they will discount the experience entirely as being 'not right'.
Of course, my project could just be an abject failure so far. :) But I don't think so. Personally, i believe that using a computer should be like playing a piano. The information should just glide, enabling inprovisation, suggesting alternatives, and generally a whole lot of fun. Think Minority Report. Didn't you just giggle when you saw that interface?
Anyways, enough gibberish. Slashdot, your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated, as I am basically targeting this UI initially as a windowmanager replacement for one of the Linux distros and possibly OS X... and moreover, I am targeting this UI at YOU.
Thanks.
c&p (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:do like Aqua (Score:2)
Re:do like Aqua (Score:5, Interesting)
The big Desktops out there Windows, Classic Mac, Aqua, KDE, Gnome - of them the only two IMHO that aren't configurable to the point a user gets in trouble are Classic Mac and Aqua.
Classic Mac is a little too static, I much prefer Aqua to anything else.
It's open to tweaking if the inner geek wants to tweak it, but for the normal user/student/professional it's just right. A user can fart around with things in the Dock to the point where they think they are really making themselves a custom computer and they don't crap up the desktop with icons.
They can't stretch out the Dock and make it take up the screen like one can with the Start bar in Windows, nor can they accidently click and move the mouse and have the bar magically go to a side or the top.
Apple did some...dumb things with Aqua as Jef Rankin has pointed out, but for the most part it's the least shitty Desktop out there.
KDE 3.2 will have a useful spell checker. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, if any of you griping about KDE's interface haven't tried KDE 3.1, you owe it to yourself to try it. Phenomenal...
Waiting for KDE 3.2. KMail will actually have a useful spell checker [glowingplate.com], which will apparently be available for use in everything KDE, including Konqueror forms (like what I'm using to write this).
The Linux kernel is ready. KDE is almost ready. Then, all we'll need will be apps developers to produce stuff which doesn't feel/look/act/work like bad Windows shareware. (Integration, developers, integration! I need OpenOffice Impress to seamlessly handle videos, and Calc to do a polynomial regression!) Then Linux will actually be ready for the desktop [glowingplate.com] and I'll be able to take that damned page off my site.
Re:KDE 3.2 will have a useful spell checker. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then
For sure!
Profit for...
It's win-win for everyone except Microsoft.
Re:KDE 3.2 will have a useful spell checker. (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder, when Linux takes 90% of PC OS market, whom will DOJ sue?
Probably Linus should consider moving back to Finland...
Re:KDE 3.2 will have a useful spell checker. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:KDE 3.2 will have a useful spell checker. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they are guaranteed to see downtime for worms and bugs. Linux has more than it's fair share of silly errors and stack buffer overruns abound. Don't believe me? Check out Debian's security announcements for this year alone. And the worms will follow. They were born on Unix. It doesn't matter how configurable or how securable a system can be.
Indeed; no software will ever be perfect. But I think that Unix (Linux being a derivative thereof) has a better ground-up concept for scalability and securability.
I think open source is a double-edged sword here. Open source lets the peer-review process close holes - but at the same time, digging out the source code that a given webserver is running would allow one to look for possible weaknesses.
I personally think Windows is damned securable as long as the person behind the keyboard puts in some effort.No one knows more about Windows security than Microsoft, and even so, they keep on getting hit by worms and attacks.
Windows is obviously quite securable - I'm sure that www.microsoft.com must be a prime target for crackers - but it feels like security has been tacked on after the fact. Look at Windows' ancestry - single user, single computer, single tasking operating systems (CP/M begat DOS which begat Windows which begat Windows NT). Windows itself grew out of that as a series of additions and major redesigns requiring backward compatibility. By contrast, Unix (and its first-order derivative, Linux) grew out of an environment where one computer cost $12 million and had to be used by 1,800 people simultaneously - security had to be inherent to the earliest designs.
Microsoft has done impressive things within their design constraints, but I still don't see it being much more than a sun-room tacked onto the side of a mobile home. There's still no foundation.
Re:Average User (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. I think one of Linux' weak points is that it doesn't offer any real *alternative* when it comes to the GUI.
I think Linux needs some sort of wildly different GUI, perhaps not even based on the WIMP metaphore. Those people who are trying to make their GUIs exactly like Windows are missing the point: Why bother changing if you're getting exactly the same thing?
As for the question at hand: I think configuration options should really be limited to colours and fonts. Once you start doing things like rearranging buttons, or changing their glyphs, then the learning curve starts to get steeper for new users.
Mabster
Re:Average User (Score:5, Informative)
has it been so long already, that the Great X11 Window Manager Chaos is beginning to be forgotten?
say, here's [plig.org] a beginner's guide sort of site for you. for the really exotic, not-even-WIMP-based ideas you'd really need a completely redesigned and rewritten application suite, which would take some little time to create, but a few of the more... exotic... WM's already out there might be good starting points. TreeWM, maybe Ion, maybe PWM, perhaps 3Dwm. or just go googling [google.com] for "window manager", see how long that'll keep you busy...
maybe it's a sign of getting old, when you can clearly remember the days of "unix has too many GUIs!" and seeing the good point that was therein made.
Re:Average User (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Average User (Score:3, Informative)
BEOS had something with their database file system and object-based UI (at system level). But they chickened out and settled for a JFS. (I'll omit the rest of their story.)
Another novel idea to the whole UI thing was NeXTSTEP (there after, OpenStep, thereafter, Mac OS X). I'm not talking about Carbon API here but rather Cocoa.
If you want to start from scratch, THAT is it. And if you'd rather it be on top of Linux, GNUStep is IT (aka, Cocoa for Linux, if you will).
Re:Average User (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Average User (Score:4, Insightful)
What would be the point of designing anything for the average user? The average user uses the OS that comes with the box when they bought it, or at most an upgrade to a newer version of that OS. The average user never gets anywhere near a Linux box, or KDE, or Gnome.
Lets think about designing stuff for the people who are actually going to be using it.
Re:Average User (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the major reasons the Windows desktop sucks, is that the programmers are forced to pander to some mythical vision of what "users" want that is the direct product of marketing and usability studies. Linux software is created by programmers who actually intend to use the software themselves, and it's better stuff all around. I am mystified by the attempt to adopt a process that has resulted in a car crash of a UI in the name of "making Linux mainstream."
Who needs it.
Re:Average User (Score:3, Insightful)
Most-used menus don't help (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that when choosing a command like Tools - Options, the user expects the Options command to appear at the bottom of the Tools menu where it traditionally lies. It is the relative location of the menu entry that is significant, not the actual menu text.
The same applies for dialog boxes. After you have used an interface for a period of time, you eventually get to the point where you can place the mouse cursor at the position on the screen where the control you will click will be, even before the dialog appears.
Lots of irrelevent menu choices is a definitely a bad thing (*cough*kde*cough*) but randomly moving menu entries isn't necessarily a good thing.
Know how annoying this is? (Score:2, Insightful)
So, once again, Windows is not the answer to GUI design. What a surprise.
Re:Have an inconfigurable core. (Score:3, Funny)
You should speak to my landlord.
Re:Have an inconfigurable core. (Score:2)
Used a trackball recently? Even for normal mice, some newer drivers for Windoze let you "recalibrate" the device for holding it at a different angle. Great for annoying coworkers by reversing their mouse directions
And there's always the setting to swap left/right mouse buttons...
Re:it should be highly self configurable (Score:2)
90% of the time, when I save a graphic file it is
Same goes for saving documents from programs like OpenOffice/KOffice -- half the time the docs are save in MS Office format (.doc/.xls/.ppt) and the other half in OpenOffice format. The computer should be smart enough to learn that I don't need to see all the historical formats (StarOffice 5.0, etc.) or the others (WordPerfect). The very few times I need them, I can unhide them.
For those that DON'T like that feature, give it the ability to turn off. Better yet, make it like KDE's "auto-preview" options with a slider for how long it studies before making a change.
Re:An OO desktop (Score:3, Informative)