[Sigia-l] Marketing vs. design

[Listera]

Dwayne King:

> I think my point was lost in my example. You rightly accused most open-source
> of projects of not starting with, nor understanding design. My point was
> simply that the same accusation could be rightly pointed at commercial
> software developers. 

That's a fair charge. But, generally speaking, commercial companies by
definition have to be more attuned to their customers and make greater
efforts to get the design/usability aspects of their apps more in line with
what's expected. Needless to say, they spend more money on design and
actually hire designers. For obvious reasons that I think we all understand,
such is not the case with the vast majority of open source software
targeting mainstream users.

Now, to cite an example that impacts millions of users, for the longest time
people have been complaining about the UX of the increasingly bloated
Photoshop. Lots of different apps have challenged its supremacy and failed.
Commercial/business aspects of this competition are formidable for anyone
going up against Adobe.

Open source has had terrific opportunities to carve out several beachheads
out of the Photoshop empire, with superior design and usability and without
having to worry about Photoshop's massive userbase and commercial
obligations. That opportunity, I'm afraid, cannot be fulfilled by
repackaging GIMP, as Robertson proposes with his CompareX series. Give us
better not more/less of the same in a different package!

In other words, design could and should have been the differentiator for
open source software, but I don't see much interest in it, especially when
those who parasitically pit it against commercial competition think the
solution is in repackaging. Sad.

----
Ziya

"Innovate as a last resort."