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

[Peter Trudelle]

I was involved in Netscape development through Mozilla for several 
years, during which I came to the conclusion that the name "Open Source" 
really says it all.  The majority of developers/projects are open to 
source code, and not much else; they have had to be that way to survive 
thus far.  Their user base is almost entirely the technical elite or 
extremely advanced users, who have a high tolerance for poor usability. 
In fact they often consider it a badge of honor that they can master it, 
thinking it more powerful than software that has been "dumbed down" for 
"lusers".   I tried to change things, along with others far more 
talented than me, but we never had a breakthrough, just a long, hard, 
uphill battle. The only hope I see for it to become more usable is with 
those tiny few developers who have any sense of what end users are like, 
and are willing to design for them, do some minimal ad-hoc usability 
testing, and adapt to their needs. .  If you want to improve the 
situation, learn to code, or influence someone who does.

Peter