[Sigia-l] Open Source Usability -- curable?

[Ilan Volow]

Echoing Laurie's experience, I used to go the NCSU linux user's group, 
where a lot of Red Hat employees would hang out. I really got a sense 
that the people who worked for Red Hat were in their own little 
exclusive unix monoculture that excluded both end users and interaction 
designers. At one particular meeting I had mentioned some usability 
problems with the Red Hat installer where information required to make 
decisions inside of a modal dialog was not only outside of the modal 
dialog but obscured by the dialog (i.e. the user had to close the 
dialog, remember or write down the information, then open the dialog 
again). The person who I mentioned this to (who I later found out wrote 
the installer) thought that the issue was that I felt the installer 
wasn't "pretty enough". Another of their employees told me the reason 
why their software had these problems was that they couldn't afford a 
usability dept, and this was probably 9 months after Red Hat had spent 
$600,000,000 buying out a compiler company. If there ever was a company 
that so excellently demonstrated what is wrong with Open Source in the 
area of non-geek computing, that company would be Red Hat.

After having been in the Open Source camp for several years and having 
seen interaction designers constantly getting treated like crap by the 
indifferent OSS developers (who usually end up saying their stuff is 
usable anyways and blame Microsoft for non-geeks not using their 
software), I've come to the conclusion that what's really needed are 
new Open Source projects based upon things like public licenses that 
enforce usability and strongly patented UI innovations that are only 
granted to projects that care about the user experience.

I know what I'm saying probably sounds harsh, ridiculous, and downright 
crazy. But when the "other side" lobbies political representatives to 
get their software installed in places that would otherwise never have 
tolerated the awful user interaction, they're already playing hard 
ball.

Ilan
Also from Raleigh, NC and who reluctantly shares his campus with Red Hat

On Jul 19, 2004, at 10:17 AM, Laurie Gray wrote:

> I have to agree with the usability issues inherent in Open Source 
> software.
> My husband used to work for Red Hat. I was involved - on my own time - 
> with
> exactly one user research event, and this is after my company spent
> considerable time and effort trying to get "into" RHAT on a
> client/consultant basis. They were simply not interested in any input 
> or
> value we might be able to provide.
>
> My husband and I used to debate the usability conundrum on a regular 
> basis.
> His point was that many Linux systems, for example, were created for 
> folks
> who were techno-gurus, interested in running servers and totally 
> comfortable
> with command line interfaces. I felt that if RHAT was to make any 
> progress
> in the desktop market, usability needed to be addressed. He countered 
> with
> the argument that RHAT would never go after the desktop market. LOL.
>
> I have seen that RHAT has "interaction design teams" but I have never 
> seen a
> job ad or heard from anyone inside that there are user experience
> professionals on staff. This leads me to think that the interaction 
> design
> team is focused on the functional relationships of components with an
> emphasis on performance rather than user experience on the front end.
>
> I was on one list that focused on the usability of KDE. It was pretty 
> high
> traffic and I did not gain much benefit from it. It seemed like any of 
> the
> open source development efforts were very much focused on the "N of 
> one"
> paradigm e.g. "I am the developer and so I am building it how it would 
> work
> best for ME." To me, that is the biggest usability hurdle that any 
> products
> in the Open Source realm need to cross. In answer to your original 
> question,
> I don't think that Open Source usability is immediately curable, and 
> it may
> not need to be as long as the developers are working on a product for a
> homogeneous population. IMO, when the products move to the desktop and 
> are
> geared for more heterogeneous populations, usability needs to be 
> directly
> addressed.
>
> One possible solution to this problem might be the creation of 
> standards
> groups to help guide Open Source developers. Perhaps style guides or 
> design
> guidelines would help. Then again, I have seen a certain renegade 
> mentality
> in the Open Source community and there is a strong possibility that 
> such
> standards would be disregarded. In any event, the creation of such 
> bodies
> would need to be voluntary and somewhat "open source" as well, I think.
>
> Laurie
> From Raleigh NC, home of Red Hat...
>