Open-Source Usability
With the next version of Ubuntu Linux coming out in about a month, many of the Ubuntu blogs have been buzzing with a range of topics - discussions on new features, examples of the improvements, reports on bugs that have been addressed (and new ones that have popped up) - most of which are relatively normal. One recent post, however, caught my attention - The #1 Problem in OSS Usability and What I’m Going To Do About It. I’ve been tossing around the things that she’s discussed in that entry, and figured I’d post my thoughts here.
The author makes some really good points in her article and so I’m going to try to avoid repeating too much of what she has already said. Before getting into it, though, I’d like to concisely summarize my opinions on development and usability without going off on a tangent:
1. Programmers should not be the sole people responsible for building the interface. They should be responsible for designing the software and building the interface around specifications determine by designers - not throwing in an interface element for every single function in the software.
2. Designers should not pretend that they are programmers, but should have a solid understanding of what the software is supposed to be doing. Don’t decorate the interface with unnecessary elements - minimalist, intuitive design is key.
Unfortunately, one of the down sides of open-source software is that a large majority of the interfaces for software that is developed is done so by programmers. That’s why it’s not surprising to see something like this, versus seeing something like this
on any given Linux distribution.
So why is her idea awesome?
First off, she not only understands usability, but she understands what the problem is with regard to usability in the open-source community. Usability is something that is already greatly ignored in software development, but even more so in a community that is primarily made up of geeks and software developers. We care more about something working versus how it looks, and it shows whenever you look at almost any piece of software that’s been hacked together.
Secondly, she’s got direction on how to address the issue. Because lack of research is the largest factor contributing to low-levels of usability, and because there’s no set standard or method of documenting the research, there’s no way to move forward with improving usability if there’s no reference on what to improve. Developing formalized documentation from the open-source community is an awesome place to start.
Lastly, she knows where to begin. She doesn’t really have a half-baked idea - she’s not only addressed the problem or how to solve it, but she’s addressed how to get it started, has explained how’s she’s going to do it, and has the personal investment in the project to keep it going. She’s got direction and you can’t drive anywhere without good directions.
Why I think this will work
Having “Open-Source Usability” is something that I’ve never really thought about, despite the fact that it makes sense. I’ve typically associated the open-source community with geeks - people that care more about good looking code rather than graphical user interfaces, people that care more about decreasing the number of cycles their algorithm costs just for the sake of decreasing it, and, generally speaking, people that care more about increasing functionality rather than experience.
When I first read this article, I was kind of quick to write it off - not because I thought it was a bad idea, but just because I didn’t think it was feasible. I’ve read the article several times and have been thinking about it for a few days. The more I thought about it, the more interested I became in this whole initiative. I then began to think about the open-source community and if it would be, well, open for something like this. I kept thinking about all of the ways in which people who care about design, usability, etc. would be deterred from Linux - then I realized it has nothing to do with the operating system. It has to do with what you’re passionate about doing, and being able to see the manifestation of your work - Linux is definitely provides a platform for doing this. I then began to think about other platforms that was open to a wide array of different users each with a range of different interests where they all cooperate - Wikipedia. I’m sold.
Open-Source Usability is step in the right direction for not only continuing to bring Linux into the mainstream (because I hold the opinion that it still isn’t ready despite so many awesome advances in the past three years), but for improving on the open-source model that has worked so well over the past several years (over a decade, even!). I’m pretty excited to see where this will go.