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User Interfaces in Free Software

Posted by michael on from the too-many-widgets-spoil-the-desktop dept.

Havoc Pennington wrote a piece on creating good user interfaces, with special attention toward GNOME 2. See also the advogato thread.

6 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. I think I'll just restate what I said last time by roffe · · Score: 5, Informative

    In a previous posting, I sum up what I think are the main reasons why Linux won't make it to the desktop just yet. Wrapping up my arguments nicely, the article was scored down as a troll.

    --
    -- Rolf Lindgren, cand.psychol
  2. Re:Worth reading by TheAJofOZ · · Score: 5, Informative
    Who gets to decide which single UI is the best though? And then what happens when tens of thousands of people disagree?

    Develop a good UI and let experts in the area choose it and you will find that there are few people who disagree that it's the best. UI design doesn't come down to personal preference, it is based on common traits that almost all people share. People only have one locus of attention, it is easier to use an interface that makes the options visible in a clear manner rather than making you guess at it, the time taken to hit a target is directly related to the distance distance to the object and the size of the object, etc, etc. It's all been documented, go do some reading on it.

  3. Re:My Rules by TheAJofOZ · · Score: 5, Insightful
    the generally snobby 'RTFM, dumbass' attitude that is ingrained in many OSS programmers.

    Every time you hear someone tell a user to 'RTFM', note the question down as an area of your app that you think is good but probably needs to have a UI redesign. The more the question is asked the more it needs a UI redesign.

  4. GNOME Usability Study by nrosier · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Didn't the Gnome Usability study done by Sun cover a lot of the shortcomings of the current GUI? It showed that the GUI was indeed created by geeks for geeks.
    The report can be found here.

  5. OSS Startup Idea: SimpleFace by rbeattie · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Okay, I was thinking about this offline and I wanted to add that there's a perfect opportunity here for an OSS startup:

    Give it a cool name like "SimpleFace" or something non-frightening like that (i.e. real words).

    Then this company would do three things (complying to KISS):

    1) Create a set of rules and guidelines for GUI applications along the lines of Apple's Human Interface guidelines. Include all of the most recent theories and practice. Publish this online. Use versions so that people can tell what's the latest draft, etc.

    2) Certify apps that comply to the SimpleFace rules. Open Source Software gets certified for free. Certify non-free software for a fee. They get to put a SimpleFace smile icon on their web pages or boxes.

    3) Create a set of classes - both online and corporate training - based on the guidelines. Some for free, others for a fee.

    Once momentum started building on something like this, corporations would be more willing to switch to OSS software if they knew that training was going to be minimized because the apps that use the SimpleFace guidelines would be easy to use for those already familiar with other SimpleFace apps.

    SimpleFace could also actively participate in the other projects as a GUI testing center. Whereas the rest of the OSS crowd might not pay attention to usability and design issues, SimpleFace would be there to help out. Providing feedback, suggestions, or even app dev for those interested.

    Why am I thinking "startup" and not just "movement" or "organization?" because I think that something like this is needed now before the OSS movement loses any more momentum in the UI race from companies like M$ and Apple. (Under the theory that a startup could move faster than a committee.) How many Unix heads do YOU know that are switching to Mac OSX because their GUI is awesome? Lots.

    -Russ

    --
    Me
  6. Hello? "Know Your User"? by Speare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article lists these issues as why Free Software UI sucks.

    • Not enough software designers to get the work done.
    • Too many cooks spoil the code's architecture.
    • Free software doesn't innovate, just copies.
    • Volunteers only want to do cool stuff.
    • Volunteers don't do boring details.
    • Maintainers cave in and add misguided features or code rather than endure flamewars.
    • People want their own features to point at.
    • Workarounds are introduced during the devel process and never removed.

    Hello? Where is the #1 reason?

    • FREE SOFTWARE DESIGNERS DON'T UNDERSTAND THEIR USERS' GOALS.

    Sure, developers write things for themselves. Developers write things for their co-workers. But do developers of Free Software really go out and research the goals of their users?

    In looking at Linux user interfaces, I see that most tools merely tie some toolkit strings onto the underlying code so that it can be manipulated. The current thinking seems to be that if the underlying driver can do something, expose that ability directly on the command line or in a preferences dialog box.

    A great case-in-point is cd-burning software. Type (cdrecord --help). The typical GUI wrapper is just the Gtk equivalent of (cdrecord --help). A massive soup of options with little help for people who don't know what a leadin is, don't care what a TOC is, don't understand how the lovers Romeo and Joliet got into CD-burning, and don't understand whether they want to fixate the disc or not.

    Instead, turn it over.

    • Who are the intended users?
    • What are their goals?
    • How would they like to get their tasks done?

    Make some archetypical example users of your application. Nate the newbie. Seth the secretary. Judy the junior admin. Devin the developer. Whoever it is that needs your help to accomplish their goals, get to know these people.

    A useful CD burning tool doesn't need to expose everything the driver can do. Add music files here. Add data files or folders here. Might you want to add more files at a later date? Burn the disc.

    In Alan Cooper's words, "don't make the user feel stupid."

    A user interface needs to start with the user, and proceed to the interface.

    --
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