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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."
To the Slashdot Community:
I represent a group with a strong presence in the open source community and came across this article. We are looking for the best and brightest software developers to create a new, completely open source operating system to rival Linux. We believe that our operating system has the potential to revolutionize the OS industry. Please visit our website (currently we are in the process of registering a domain name so this is a temporary site) to find out more details on our project (project code 360-p) and send us your resume so that we can see that you match our required skills. We look forward to hearing from all of you!
Sincerely,
Darryl Hall, Co-Founder
Oates Hall Industries
you must be a moron or something. Debian is quite intuitive. Maybe you shouldn't be useing a 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.
Frankly, it's because usability engineering isn't about taking some piece of code, hacking it, and submitting it back. It's a much more dedicated, organized effort. And the good usability engineers are all getting paid quite well by the big software houses.
Most O/S geeks do not have the talent to design good user interfaces no matter how smart they think they are. What is quick for them is confusing to the average user. "How could a big button that does something be confusing?" asks the geek? It's much more subtle than that, and you geeks know only the obvious basics but not the art.