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

[Laurie Gray]

Ziya, I raised this question with the Red-Hatters. The response: "*I* am the
user, I'm building it to meet my needs, therefore it's 100% usable for me."
Funny, but I've heard the same thing from engineering manager at mobile
phone manufacturers too.

The classic "N of one" conundrum.

When I was fighting this battle within the open source community, I argued
that in order for OS in general/Linux in particular to move into the
mainstream, a broader user base would need to be considered for usability
purposes. Contacts in the OS community argued that Linux was meant to be a
server operating system, geared automatically for a more technical user who
could tolerate a little hunting around and frustration in order for the
power and flexibility that the solution offered. I told them that if there
was ever to be desktop adoption of Linux, they'd need to expand the base.
They scoffed at that idea: "Linux? On the desktop? Bwahahahahahaha. You're
insane."

I chuckle to myself when I read the news these days...

Laurie

-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf Of
Listera
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2004 4:53 PM
To: SIGIA-L
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Open Source Usability -- curable?

Unfortunately, we haven't even mentioned the ultimate arbiters in this case:
users.