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

[Listera]

Laurie Gray:
> 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.

Yes, it's difficult to argue along those lines.

The argument I use with programmers (wrt UCD) is that their code is
ultimately *inelegant*. It does help that I've been coding longer than most
programmers I get to meet and that I can usually take them through
alternative approaches, but programmers naturally love a challenge. When
they are shown that their work (the code) remains less than elegant in
meeting the challenge (you have to frame the problem right), they are, more
often than not, hooked into refining it.

In other words, throwing a bunch of wizard screens is easy and inelegant,
rearranging code so that the need for wizards is eliminated to begin with is
hard and elegant. So to paraphrase the governor, you'd be asking them if
they're girlie men or not. :-)

Ziya
Nullius in Verba