Re: Why GNOME Hackers Should Care about Usability

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

Alex Graveley <alex ximian com> said: 
> So...
> 
> You could go on forever explaining to the hackers why they need to
> improve, and point to examples of mistakes to prove this need. You could
> create usability groups and commitees and workshops to help educate all
> the hackers and enforce your guidelines.
> 
> Or...
> 
> You could spend 1/100 of that time writing patches, or sending email to
> maintainers explaining what you think they should change.
 
We're not going to get a truly usable GNOME desktop until GNOME
hackers themselves learn to think about usability issues. Sending an
explanation of why any one given feature should be changed is (a)
likely to be ignored and (b) likely to require a lot of basic-level
explanation of the developer you're talking to doesn't have the right
grounding and mindset.

I think your email is an example of the wrong attitude - we all need
to be thinking about how to make software better for the user, not
leaving it up to a handful of patch and suggestion senders!

 - Maciej