Slashdot Mirror
Usability and Open Source Software
Martin Soto writes "This article by two user interaction researchers, discusses many of the usability problems in current open source projects. The nice part is that, unlike many /. readers, it doesn't stop there, but goes into suggesting novel (at least for the OSS community) approaches to cope with those problems in an open source compatible way. Worth a read to those that, like me, still think that OSS should find its way to every desktop computer."
"You can't cook Indian food? Read the freaking manual, a hundred-million people do it every day."
Yes. That's the way new skills are learned. Go buy a book, ask a friend, take a class. Anybody can learn to cook indian food and the fact that a hundred million people could do it is ample proof that this is not some mysterious process for the super genious.
"Gave up on learning to draw? Are you physically handicapped?"
No just lazy, maybe unmotivated, quite possibly untalented. Certainly nothing I would brag about.
"Go ahead and feel superior, but other people have other optional skills that you don't."
Of course they do. But the people who read and participate in a "geek" website who then publicly profess that they are unable to install an operating system should be ridiculed at every opportunity not moderated up. They ought to hang out at the knitting boards, or snowboarding boards or the "I love britney spears" web sites because that is more their speed.
War is necrophilia.