KDE's UI To Bend Toward Simplicity

sfcrazy (1542989) writes "KDE Software is often criticized for being too complicated for an average user to use. Try setting up Kmail and you would know what I mean. The KDE developers are aware of it and now they are working on making KDE UI simpler. KDE usability team lead Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application. He quotes the earlier (pre-Plasma era) vision of KDE 4 – "Anything that makes Linux interesting for technical users (shells, compilation, drivers, minute user settings) will be available; not as the default way of doing things, but at the user's discretion."

Comments

Simplification, n.

[marcello_dl]

Simplification: the act of removing features that are deemed unnecessary, redundant, irrelevant.
Simplification (UI design): the act of removing or transforming discoverable, one-step, procedures in opaque, 3-step-after-reconfiguration procedures. See Gnome, Windows, OSX. Hopefully not KDE.

Re:Simplification, n.

[Kjella]

While you do have a point, I'd counter that there's no way to do anything with a computer unless there's an interface for it. For example if you go to Burger King 90%+ order as-is from the menu. But there's all sorts of simple instructions like "no onions" you can tell a clerk that you can't tell a computer. If you go to Whopper Lab you can see all the options of buns, patties, dressings and toppings available in none, light, normal and extra quantities and so on that would totally overwhelm the average customer. If the interface didn't exist, the option wouldn't exist but any given option will be the default something like 99.9% of the time.

I like being able to manage my computer, I don't like having to micromanage my computer unless there's a specific reason to. I consider having obvious buttons to find more advanced controls to be discoverable, not that you need to throw every option in my face to say hey, you could change this behavior if you wanted to. If it's possible to set a sensible default and I haven't seen a reason to go looking for it then I don't need to know. Non-discoverable features I consider things like touching corners that don't have any hint they have actions, buttons with no obvious function/that don't look like buttons, shortcuts you can't find except looking them up, type to search with no hints and so on.

That said, I generally prefer an expanding/alternate dialog over a multi-step dialog. If I know I need to go into the advanced settings every time because I'm the 1% using that function I'd rather have the ability to pin it to expand/use the advanced dialog by default, meaning it should be a superset of the basic dialog not just the extras. Since we're already in an advanced dialog having a checkbox "Use advanced display by default" at a standard location wouldn't hurt. Go into the advanced dialog once, check that box and next time you go straight to where you want to be. It is usually far more user-dependent than situation-dependent, so I think that'd work well for most everybody.

Re:Simplification, n.

[drinkypoo]

They claim they're moving things, not removing them. If done well this will help KDE immensely because current prefs dialogs treat trivial and significant settings as equally important by barfing them all up together into a big dialog.

Some criticism

[jones_supa]

This YouTube video offers some pretty good KDE criticism as well. I personally am mostly frustrated with the clunky and cluttered notifications system.

Simplicity itself

[wonkey_monkey]

KDE's UI To Bend Toward Simplicity

"Bend toward simplicity"? Couldn't you have just said "to be simplified"? That seems... simpler.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

"KDE Software is often criticized for being too complicated for an average user to use. "

By whom? Since when?

Me. If I think it is, then no doubt many people think it is. It;s why I stopped with KDE and just stuck with Gnome.

"The KDE developers are aware of it and now they are working on making KDE UI simpler. "

Thinking of GNOME, which was once somewhat useful and useable before the developers started talking like this, a shiver runs down my spine.

I would say that is a fair reaction, if you are thinking about Gnome. The more we compare, the more we sometimes drive things that way. We bash gnome now, defenders come out and defend it, and now we've really got a war on our hands. This happens often life.

"KDE usability team lead Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application. He quotes the earlier (pre-Plasma era) vision of KDE 4 â" "Anything that makes Linux interesting for technical users (shells, compilation, drivers, minute user settings) will be available; not as the default way of doing things, but at the user's discretion."

Ugh. *Minute user settings* are actually very important to many non-technical users. This does sound like GNOME, unfortunately.

Sounds more like Windows to me. And that actually, may be a good thing. Seriously, Windows got a lock on the desktop because people liked it, and by people, I mean everyday joe blow secretary or the executive that can't even type his own emails or use a spreadsheet, in short the greater pool or end users.

People use what they like, the like what they can dive into, and later on pull back the curtain. Having tools to get into the guts is a great idea. And you know what, it was cool, at first, that I could pull up a terminal and look under the hood quickly when I used Ubuntu from the very get go years ago. That novelty quickly wore off when I ended up having to do these things. I like the ability, but clutter and a dozen options get in the way of getting basic things done.

I once read a great take on organization. If you have more than ten of something, you probably need another level for ease of use, be it files in a folder, icons in a start menu, etc. I took the time to redesign my start menu in windows, and boy I and anyone else could find right where any program was, quickly.

Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman should come together, and make a short video clip. And they should be screaming, "Designers! Designers! Designers!"

TRULY simplifying things is HARD

[sootman]

Simplifying does NOT mean "show what I think are the 4 most important controls and hide the other 47 behind a menu icon."