Re: GNOME Usability Improvements - Fix the window manager!

[sungod <sungod atdot org>]

Michael Stearne (MStearne@EISolutions.com)'s email of 08/06/99 13:54 said:

>Thomas Hedler wrote:
>> On 06-Aug-99 Ben Frantzdale wrote:

>> The users have to learn some things. If they don't want to learn
>> something they should use windows or better buy a Mac.
>
>How will Linux ever be a desktop platform with this thinking?
>
>Users shouldn't HAVE to learn things, they should have the option of
>learning things if they want to.  You can avoid the the blue screen, by
>locking the eject button on a CD drive like Macs do.  Mounting and
>unmounting of media is done right on the Mac, why can't this method just
>be used in Linux?  Have a "Trash" Can on the Desktop and drag the CD
>there to unmount it. There is no reason to re-invent the wheel if there
>is a suitable solution out there. Just because a method is used by
>another OS besides Linux doesn't mean it is wrong. 

A few points:

* Users WILL always have to learn things, like it or not. As a program 
designer, you can make it easier or harder to learn things, but you 
cannot realistically (and SHOULD not, even if you could) make a program 
with a flat learning curve.

To see an example of why not, check out the Interface Hall of Shame's 
review of Apple's QuickTime 4.0 media player. They limited themselves to 
the constraints of a physical handheld device, and in doing so, 
completely made the whole concept of viewing video on your computer 
useless.

It's possible to write applications that are _easy to learn_, and this we 
should aim for: include "memory pointers" to help remember things, 
constrain user choices when possible to prevent error, etc. etc. etc. But 
it's _not_ such a wise idea to try to eliminate innovation altogether.

* The "drag to trash" metaphor to eject disks is (as pointed out by many 
usability experts, including Apple's design team themselves these days) 
the worst part of its interface. Think about what the metaphor SHOULD 
mean: to drag a filesystem to the trash should DELETE it, if it is to 
remain consistent.

We can copy many ideas from Apple, but this is certainly not among them. 
Far better would be to simply have "eject disk" be one of the choices in 
the contextual menu. And, if I recall correctly, it is now.

* Floppies are obsolete. Some people don't believe me, but I got mad at 
its shortcomings one day and swore never to use them again, and yanked 
the floppy drives out of all my workstations. I forced myself to find 
alternatives, and the alternatives I found have been much, much more 
convenient than that 3.5" square of shit has ever been. I don't think 
anyone should center any major new technologies around the floppy drive, 
including GNOME's method of managing removable media.

I think it's reasonable to settle for the "eject" choice in the 
contextual menu, as stated above, and if your floppy drive doesn't 
support locking mechanisms and software ejects, the user can cope with 
those shortcomings until they're so inconvenienced that they upgrade to 
120mb SuperDisk or better.

Call me a heretic. Linux itself doesn't run on old obsolete hardware 
without memory management. (Caveat: some people hack it to this, but it's 
exactly that: a hack.) At some point, you have to declare old broken (by 
today's standards) technologies dead, and move on. This one thing we 
_must_ copy from Apple: they know when it's time to move on to something 
newer.

-- 
"True riches only increase." -R. Buckminster Fuller
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