How To Fix the Poor Usability of Free Software

flosofl writes "Matthew Paul Thomas has an entry on his blog called Why Free Software Has Poor Usability, And How To Improve It. While this advice is helpful and may indeed lead to improvements in many open source programs, the guidelines may be much more difficult for smaller projects. From the entry, 'Free Software has a long and healthy tradition of "show me the code." But when someone points out a usability issue, this tradition turns into "patches welcome," which is unhelpful since most designers aren't programmers. And it's not obvious how else usability specialists should help out.'" Thomas has been developing the ideas in this essay for years. The critique is comprehensive, listing 15 challenges in the way software projects, and in particular free software projects, are structured, with suggestions for improving each one.

Comments

Re:Usability is a matter of opinion

[turbidostato]

"You are a good example of the "works for me" mentality in the open source software community. "If it works for me, then it must work for anybody else, and if it doesn't, it's their fault"."

You are a good example of the "I'master of Universe" mentality in the open source users community. The mentality of a spare-time open source developer is not "If it works for me, then it must work for anybody else, and if it doesn't, it's their fault" but "If it works for me, then it works for everybody I meant it to work for, so I'm finished".

When you go to the mall for your weekly shop you don't (generally) ask all your neighbourgs what they want from the mall. Probably if some neighbourgh *politely* asks if you can do him a favour and bring some shampoo for him, you'll probably do it. If he asks unpolitely, or if he asks you to bring him a 50" plasma screen, or if he asks you to do his shop every week you'll send him to hell.

When a spare-time developer gives you *anything* he is making you a favour; just treat him as you'd treat your neighbough if you want him to bring you a shampoo bottle from the mall. I don't think it's so hard to understand.

Re:Why is "patches welcome" a bad thing?

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's because "patches are welcome" is developer-speak for "fuck off". Surely you recognize this. If you're not an experienced developer yourself, it is utterly impossible to contribute a patch. Developers know this and use the phrase frequently to get out of needing to change their software.

Why do you criticize me for not working for you for free?

You're being criticized because there's some problem with your software. Instead of fixing it, you come out with "fuck off". In the real world, we call this "feeling no obligation to your customers". Why do you feel no obligation? Because it's free software. Obviously you feel very strongly that the lack of money is what is keeping you from fixing your problems, and being free software, there won't ever be any money in it. This is a huge problem with free software, and one that's not likely to go anywhere soon.