Why bother? Those studies don't mean a damn thing in the real world, and everybody but people like yourself it seems realize it.
Yeah, those macintosh (xerox parc) people! What idiots, their GUI studies amounted to nothing. Geez man, you're right, lets all just use god-damn VT100 terminals again.
As a result, for example, human factors issues are weakly addressed in Linux and it's native GUI projects. The overall conciseness of a design suffers when wandering coders can, well.. just wander through the code extending it.
Well put. There are things that just have to measured/tested when you are designing for public consumption. We are talking about making something that 10^7+ people will use. You cannot rely on the taste and foresight of a single genius to design an interface that works for that many people. Nor can you rely on random hackers to slam together something that makes sense to hordes of non-programmers.
I wish that Redhat, now that it has the money, would make some investment in human-factor studies of desktop interfaces.
I recall an article in Fast Company about a web-design company that designs webpages by releasing multiple versions of the website and then recording statistics about which of websites generates more e-commerce and hits. The one with the best numbers then becomes the permanent website. Often times, certain designs would bring in MULTIPLE times the business of other designs. Which ones worked and which didn't? There was NO pattern, the way to find the best design was to TEST, TEST, TEST.
I really think that the gnome and KDE people could really benefit from that kind of thinking.
IE is worse than Netscape (which it definitely is, in my experience)"
IE is faster than Netscape. I have not measured it but surely it is obvious.
IE crashes less than Netscape. Again no hard data, other than typical usage.
Fonts in Netscape on linux are AWFUL. Someone please tell me if it can be fixed.
IE more follows more W3C standards-- although both leave more to be desired in this area.
I guess the only way to really prove the first two points is to measure performance in some way, but it is hard to find anyone that thinks IE is less stable than Netscape. The last point is not debatable see... http://webreview.com/pub/guides/style/style.html The discussion is about CSS1, IE's compliance far exceeds netscape's. Both browsers have good HTML 4 support. XML support does not exist in Netscape, and is brain-damaged in IE.
I agree that porting IE to linux is a pointless thing to wish for, but what do you really mean when you say that IE is "worse" than netscape?
Look thi, graphical browsers are here to stay, whether you like them or not.
I should add that like other lynx advocates, your website is about as attactive as old pair of mens briefs. If you think the future of the web will look like your website, you cannot be more wrong.
I think it is best for linux if lynx is not mentioned as a possible browser that can compete with other browsers, especially IE.
I agree that it is bad to "integrate" the browser to the OS in the way that MS has done. But lets not forget that the browser is the most important and heavily used application. Few people will give a low-performance browser "a fair chance" just because it works a on a cool OS. Also, shouldn't Netscape be able to exploit a total understanding of the linux OS to make their browser faster and better? Some of the browsers for linux mentioned in the article are a total joke. NO ONE would ever use Amaya to browse the web. Lynx is only for emergency situations or for people who have no choice. Netscape cannot compare to IE. Yes, it is "unfair" to compare the two browsers on different platforms, so what? The computer industry is based on unfairness. The only way microsoft will be buried is if people are given *better* alternatives. This has nothing to do with fairness. In my opinion, the article was mushy and never got to what should be the prime point: All general purpose browsers for linux suck, and MUST be replaced something better. That said, mozilla seems very promising. I hope that it can develop into a stable browser soon.
Linux will never be the most popular desktop OS until it has the best browser. You cannot underestimate the importance of a good browser. People _buy_ computers so that they can surf the web. Right now the browser situation for linux is deplorable. Did anyone ever stop to wonder how many people bought redhat, and then were turned off to *LINUX* because the ugly fonts and sluggish behavior and constant crashing of Netscape? YES, that DOES happen. If one more geek talks about the merits of lynx as though it is a viable alternative to a graphical browser, I will scream.
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Yeah, those macintosh (xerox parc) people! What idiots, their GUI studies amounted to nothing. Geez man, you're right, lets all just use god-damn VT100 terminals again.
Well put. There are things that just have to measured/tested when you are designing for public consumption. We are talking about making something that 10^7+ people will use. You cannot rely on the taste and foresight of a single genius to design an interface that works for that many people. Nor can you rely on random hackers to slam together something that makes sense to hordes of non-programmers.
I wish that Redhat, now that it has the money, would make some investment in human-factor studies of desktop interfaces.
I recall an article in Fast Company about a web-design company that designs webpages by releasing multiple versions of the website and then recording statistics about which of websites generates more e-commerce and hits. The one with the best numbers then becomes the permanent website. Often times, certain designs would bring in MULTIPLE times the business of other designs. Which ones worked and which didn't? There was NO pattern, the way to find the best design was to TEST, TEST, TEST.
I really think that the gnome and KDE people could really benefit from that kind of thinking.
I guess the only way to really prove the first two points is to measure performance in some way, but it is hard to find anyone that thinks IE is less stable than Netscape. The last point is not debatable see... http://webreview.com/pub/guides/style/style.html The discussion is about CSS1, IE's compliance far exceeds netscape's. Both browsers have good HTML 4 support. XML support does not exist in Netscape, and is brain-damaged in IE.
I agree that porting IE to linux is a pointless thing to wish for, but what do you really mean when you say that IE is "worse" than netscape?
Look thi, graphical browsers are here to stay, whether you like them or not.
I should add that like other lynx advocates, your website is about as attactive as old pair of mens briefs. If you think the future of the web will look like your website, you cannot be more wrong.
I think it is best for linux if lynx is not mentioned as a possible browser that can compete with other browsers, especially IE.
I agree that it is bad to "integrate" the browser to the OS in the way that MS has done. But lets not forget that the browser is the most important and heavily used application. Few people will give a low-performance browser "a fair chance" just because it works a on a cool OS. Also, shouldn't Netscape be able to exploit a total understanding of the linux OS to make their browser faster and better? Some of the browsers for linux mentioned in the article are a total joke. NO ONE would ever use Amaya to browse the web. Lynx is only for emergency situations or for people who have no choice. Netscape cannot compare to IE. Yes, it is "unfair" to compare the two browsers on different platforms, so what? The computer industry is based on unfairness. The only way microsoft will be buried is if people are given *better* alternatives. This has nothing to do with fairness. In my opinion, the article was mushy and never got to what should be the prime point: All general purpose browsers for linux suck, and MUST be replaced something better. That said, mozilla seems very promising. I hope that it can develop into a stable browser soon.
Linux will never be the most popular desktop OS until it has the best browser. You cannot underestimate the importance of a good browser. People _buy_ computers so that they can surf the web. Right now the browser situation for linux is deplorable. Did anyone ever stop to wonder how many people bought redhat, and then were turned off to *LINUX* because the ugly fonts and sluggish behavior and constant crashing of Netscape? YES, that DOES happen. If one more geek talks about the merits of lynx as though it is a viable alternative to a graphical browser, I will scream.