I did read the patent beforehand. And you're entirely missing my point. Did you read my post before posting yourself?
While I agree that the iPod interface is better and far more refined
Why didn't your pre-iPod-Creative-Nomad have as just a good or more refined interface than the iPod? Why couldn't it have been Creative being the ones to create the very refined, superior UI for portable MP3 players?
In the several years I've followed Slashdot, I've read countless article after countless article bashing Apple for things like not making their Cocoa UI open source, or suing rival hardware manufacturers for copying their latest innovation, or going after theme-makers who attempt to copy their Aqua for use on other platforms. Maybe some of those concerns are legitimate, but there's another legitimate concern whose presence is never expressed: why is it always Apple who has to be the one inventing these great things? In my opinion, there should be equal outrage about the rest of the computer industry (Open Source included) not furthering technological progress for the common man.
Why can't we have outrage over all the non-innovative cloners not taking innovative risks to make life better for end users? Why can't we have articles like "dell refuses to innovate" or "Gateway poo-poos idea that would make things easier for end users because it was deemed too risky"? Why can't we have these kinds of articles in addition to "Apple sues dell for copying their innovation" or "Apple threatens gateway for look-and-feel infringement"?
Why can't we be outraged over Creative Labs or Diamond Rio or anyone else not being the first to make an ergonomically excellent hard-disk based portable mp3 players with a superior UI? Why can there only be outrage over Apple preventing these people from copying the UI that they themselves weren't willing to make in the first place?
Why can't we have outrage over Open Source/Free Software projects caring little about things like interface design or not coming up with innovative UI's? Why can't we have articles like "linux distribution spends $700,000,000 on dot-com buyouts and $50 on usability research" or "$DESKTOP_PROJECT coordinator tells HCI person with legitimate UI complaint 'quit whining about what you get for free' while telling industry pundit 'quit spreading M$ FUD About Linux Being Hard To Use'"? Why can we only feel outrage over articles like "Apple threatens $DESKTOP_PROJECT over copying Expose" or "Apple Sues Linux Distribution For Copying Aqua Theme?"
We shouldn't be pissed about Apple trying to horde and brutally protect it's innovations, we should be pissed about them being the only ones creating innovations worth hording and brutally protecting.
Two different toolkits will always have some differences in user-interaction. They will have lots of little different things that are done in little different ways resuling in little different behaviors, ultimately adding up into one big inconsistent and problematic user experience when combined. No matter how much effort it is made to smooth over the differences, some inconsistency will leak through. It was dumb mistake to have two different toolkits in the first place, and is an even dumber mistake for the same people who had committed the first mistake (and defended it for years) to try to merge the two environments when they realized the first mistake had bitten them in the ass (after years of HCI people on the fringes of the FLOSS community telling them that this is exactly what would happen).
If Red Hat had really wanted to solve this problem, they wouldn't have created the BlueCurve theme; if they had really wanted to solve this problem they would have used some of the $700,000,000 they had spent on buying a compiler company and several dot-coms and spent it buying out Trolltech and making Qt the Linux UI standard whose license everyone could agree with.
It's the kernel hackers and like minded systems people/unix geeks who are absolutely clueless about interface design who seem to think you can simply cobble together to different environments, make all the icons look the same, and not have any problems. Unfortunately, these are the people who have the coding skill, and thus, all the decisions about how the UI design of linux will progress.
Current Linux UI's are designed by programmers. And it shows.
While I don't like any of those things, I don't think fighting for a world dominated by a programmer elite where any end-user or HCI person who expresses grievances with the usability of the FOSS software forced upon them is covertly "silenced" is hardly an improvement.
It is recommended that companies spend 10% of their development budget on researching the usability of their products. Every dollar that is spent on usability saves $100 in support costs.
Red Hat has spent over $700,000,000 buying out a compiler company and a few silly dot coms. They recently sold $500,000,000 in bonds. Their programmers tell me the reason why their software has so many usability problems is that they "can't afford to hire HCI people".
SuSe was bought out for $200,000,000. From what I have heard from other user interaction people, the usability of YaST is an absolute disgrace. Doesn't seem like SuSe is spending money for a usability dept either.
Both of these companies claim to be making desktop software that is perfectly usable and perfectly fit for a grandmother or a secretary. They are both going to try like hell to replace everyone's Windows desktop with Linux. Many of the desktops they are currently looking to replace are those in businesses, where the end-user won't have the "don't want to use it, don't choose it" recourse that most linux zealots claim people have.
Both these companies already spend wads of money hiring people like kernel hackers and web server programmers. To ask these companies to spend equivalent amounts on usability is not, in my opinion, is perfectly justified. If they feel that only "important" technical fields like kernel hacking deserve funding, then should at least have the decency to pay to switch their existing desktop customers back to Windows. .
The first criticism a UI critic would make is that KDE should have brought in UI critics and seriously listened to them at the inception of KDE in 1997, before any major code had been written. Decent usability requires that user interaction be considered from the beginning before any major code is written, not put in as an afterthought or as damage control. Once something has been released and had some history behind it, programmers are going to be damned reluctant to change it.
Yes, they might form QA teams and say they want to make it more usable--up until the the point where you tell them that to fix all the usability problems and provide something consistent with a truly integrated feel they have to throw out half their codebase, rewrite 5 million lines, and send 30 years of entrenched Unix culture to/dev/null.
Designing UI before writing code is not The Unix Way, which is why so many Unix desktops tend to fail.
And it took them seven damn years for KDE to make that simple, most necessary change. Seven years. Any project that makes such a stupid mistake like that to begin with (Apple didn't do it in 1984), and then takes seven damn years to fix this usability problem (with some people fighting tooth and nail against it being fixed) doesn't have a hell of a lot going for it.
To me it doesn't matter that this problem was finally fixed; that the problem existed in the first place and that it took so long to fix (with many not considering it to be a problem) really says a lot about the KDE project in general.
You have to be careful, though. If the only people who choose the option are one specific type of user (e.g. geeks), then you might get some really skewed data.
The second the Free Software community started trying to push their stuff on schools, governments, and corporations, every Free Software developer earned a moral obligation to improve the usability of their stuff and they lost the right to say "Quit whining about what you're getting for free". The instant you put your software in areas where people don't have a choice in the software they use, you are no longer "just a volunteer".
Free Software Developers either need to make their usable or they need to stop their lobbying and go back to the server closet they came from.
We talk about world domination, but we'll neither have it nor deserve it until we learn to do better than this. A lot better.--ESR
I have constantly heard stories about the fantastic user interaction dept at Microsoft, and how they have golden temples in the himalayas staffed by Yeti's with PhD's in HCI and cognitive psychology who run thousands of usability tests on software before it's released. Yet the usability of Microsoft stuff remains terrible.
As I see it, there are three possible explanations:
There are no golden temples with HCI Yetis
There are so many levels of bureaucracy at Microsoft that the user interaction people who could make a difference never actually get to talk to the programmers
The user interaction people have talked to the Microsoft's programmers, and the programmers simply just don't give a damn and don't want to listen to or heed their suggestions
I agree with your points, but debating the usability of fetchmailconf itself is pointless. You're already taking a gigantic usability hit by asking the user to configure a separate program to download mail and then use another seperate program to read that mail. Anything humane is going to the both of those.
IMHO, the only people who are going to be anal enough to want a separation between the program that downloads their mail and the program that reads it are the very same unixy people who think that fetchmailconf is a spectacular, shining example of user-friendly design.
What we really need to have happen is the folks who still have such values as those of the original macintosh form their own linux environment where thinking differently about apps/environments is accepted and where essential macintosh freedoms (e.g. the freedom to criticize the living hell out of bad and confusing software) are fully protected. People like us need to stop putting our faith in hopeless projects like KDE and GNOME that are dominated by traditional unix hackers, and to start putting faith in ourselves and our own work.
BTW, I've liked your previous posts regarding linux usability, for what it's worth.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree.
I think that the problem is the inability of some programmers to understand how people work. And pretty UI's don't fix that.
Which goes first, the chicken or the egg?
I get where you're coming from, but I think a dildo menu would be a lot harder to click on.
My post is not about patents.
My post is about why Creative didn't put a scroll-wheel on their MP3's players first.
I did read the patent beforehand. And you're entirely missing my point. Did you read my post before posting yourself?
While I agree that the iPod interface is better and far more refined
Why didn't your pre-iPod-Creative-Nomad have as just a good or more refined interface than the iPod? Why couldn't it have been Creative being the ones to create the very refined, superior UI for portable MP3 players?
Why can't we have outrage over all the non-innovative cloners not taking innovative risks to make life better for end users? Why can't we have articles like "dell refuses to innovate" or "Gateway poo-poos idea that would make things easier for end users because it was deemed too risky"? Why can't we have these kinds of articles in addition to "Apple sues dell for copying their innovation" or "Apple threatens gateway for look-and-feel infringement"?
Why can't we be outraged over Creative Labs or Diamond Rio or anyone else not being the first to make an ergonomically excellent hard-disk based portable mp3 players with a superior UI? Why can there only be outrage over Apple preventing these people from copying the UI that they themselves weren't willing to make in the first place?
Why can't we have outrage over Open Source/Free Software projects caring little about things like interface design or not coming up with innovative UI's? Why can't we have articles like "linux distribution spends $700,000,000 on dot-com buyouts and $50 on usability research" or "$DESKTOP_PROJECT coordinator tells HCI person with legitimate UI complaint 'quit whining about what you get for free' while telling industry pundit 'quit spreading M$ FUD About Linux Being Hard To Use'"? Why can we only feel outrage over articles like "Apple threatens $DESKTOP_PROJECT over copying Expose" or "Apple Sues Linux Distribution For Copying Aqua Theme?"
We shouldn't be pissed about Apple trying to horde and brutally protect it's innovations, we should be pissed about them being the only ones creating innovations worth hording and brutally protecting.
Perhaps there will be peace once vapors from the model airplane cement arms race take effect.
Fitting a midget in a model airplane? That's ridiculous and implausible.
Such a system would actually employ something like a gerbil and an excersise wheel.
We'd have thought the idea of a talking paperclip was completely ridiculous.
Two different toolkits will always have some differences in user-interaction. They will have lots of little different things that are done in little different ways resuling in little different behaviors, ultimately adding up into one big inconsistent and problematic user experience when combined. No matter how much effort it is made to smooth over the differences, some inconsistency will leak through. It was dumb mistake to have two different toolkits in the first place, and is an even dumber mistake for the same people who had committed the first mistake (and defended it for years) to try to merge the two environments when they realized the first mistake had bitten them in the ass (after years of HCI people on the fringes of the FLOSS community telling them that this is exactly what would happen).
If Red Hat had really wanted to solve this problem, they wouldn't have created the BlueCurve theme; if they had really wanted to solve this problem they would have used some of the $700,000,000 they had spent on buying a compiler company and several dot-coms and spent it buying out Trolltech and making Qt the Linux UI standard whose license everyone could agree with.
It's the kernel hackers and like minded systems people/unix geeks who are absolutely clueless about interface design who seem to think you can simply cobble together to different environments, make all the icons look the same, and not have any problems. Unfortunately, these are the people who have the coding skill, and thus, all the decisions about how the UI design of linux will progress.
Current Linux UI's are designed by programmers. And it shows.
You show up late to work because you were too busy playing with your watch to notice the time.
While I don't like any of those things, I don't think fighting for a world dominated by a programmer elite where any end-user or HCI person who expresses grievances with the usability of the FOSS software forced upon them is covertly "silenced" is hardly an improvement.
I'd rather have a happy medium that doesn't suck.
If Carly Fiorina becomes Martha Stewart's cell mate, can we expect some tasteful lavendar-scented gingham-pattern HP boxes in the near future?
er, change "on usability is not, in my opinion, is perfectly justified" to "on usability is not unjustified".
My bad.
It is recommended that companies spend 10% of their development budget on researching the usability of their products. Every dollar that is spent on usability saves $100 in support costs.
Red Hat has spent over $700,000,000 buying out a compiler company and a few silly dot coms. They recently sold $500,000,000 in bonds. Their programmers tell me the reason why their software has so many usability problems is that they "can't afford to hire HCI people".
SuSe was bought out for $200,000,000. From what I have heard from other user interaction people, the usability of YaST is an absolute disgrace. Doesn't seem like SuSe is spending money for a usability dept either.
Both of these companies claim to be making desktop software that is perfectly usable and perfectly fit for a grandmother or a secretary. They are both going to try like hell to replace everyone's Windows desktop with Linux. Many of the desktops they are currently looking to replace are those in businesses, where the end-user won't have the "don't want to use it, don't choose it" recourse that most linux zealots claim people have.
Both these companies already spend wads of money hiring people like kernel hackers and web server programmers. To ask these companies to spend equivalent amounts on usability is not, in my opinion, is perfectly justified. If they feel that only "important" technical fields like kernel hacking deserve funding, then should at least have the decency to pay to switch their existing desktop customers back to Windows.
.
The first criticism a UI critic would make is that KDE should have brought in UI critics and seriously listened to them at the inception of KDE in 1997, before any major code had been written. Decent usability requires that user interaction be considered from the beginning before any major code is written, not put in as an afterthought or as damage control. Once something has been released and had some history behind it, programmers are going to be damned reluctant to change it.
/dev/null.
Yes, they might form QA teams and say they want to make it more usable--up until the the point where you tell them that to fix all the usability problems and provide something consistent with a truly integrated feel they have to throw out half their codebase, rewrite 5 million lines, and send 30 years of entrenched Unix culture to
Designing UI before writing code is not The Unix Way, which is why so many Unix desktops tend to fail.
And it took them seven damn years for KDE to make that simple, most necessary change. Seven years. Any project that makes such a stupid mistake like that to begin with (Apple didn't do it in 1984), and then takes seven damn years to fix this usability problem (with some people fighting tooth and nail against it being fixed) doesn't have a hell of a lot going for it.
To me it doesn't matter that this problem was finally fixed; that the problem existed in the first place and that it took so long to fix (with many not considering it to be a problem) really says a lot about the KDE project in general.
You have to be careful, though. If the only people who choose the option are one specific type of user (e.g. geeks), then you might get some really skewed data.
Or you could simply sit down with your users and watch how they use the program.
The second the Free Software community started trying to push their stuff on schools, governments, and corporations, every Free Software developer earned a moral obligation to improve the usability of their stuff and they lost the right to say "Quit whining about what you're getting for free". The instant you put your software in areas where people don't have a choice in the software they use, you are no longer "just a volunteer".
Free Software Developers either need to make their usable or they need to stop their lobbying and go back to the server closet they came from.
We talk about world domination, but we'll neither have it nor deserve it until we learn to do better than this. A lot better.--ESR
As I've already explained my position on KDE usability, I won't bother posting it here.
As I see it, there are three possible explanations:
I agree with your points, but debating the usability of fetchmailconf itself is pointless. You're already taking a gigantic usability hit by asking the user to configure a separate program to download mail and then use another seperate program to read that mail. Anything humane is going to the both of those.
IMHO, the only people who are going to be anal enough to want a separation between the program that downloads their mail and the program that reads it are the very same unixy people who think that fetchmailconf is a spectacular, shining example of user-friendly design.
What we really need to have happen is the folks who still have such values as those of the original macintosh form their own linux environment where thinking differently about apps/environments is accepted and where essential macintosh freedoms (e.g. the freedom to criticize the living hell out of bad and confusing software) are fully protected. People like us need to stop putting our faith in hopeless projects like KDE and GNOME that are dominated by traditional unix hackers, and to start putting faith in ourselves and our own work.
BTW, I've liked your previous posts regarding linux usability, for what it's worth.
If security is paramount, why did Microsoft sell so many copies of NT Server?