Re: GNOME design principles: It's not that they're disliked by critics, it's that there are missing principles

[Cyril Arnaud <cyril arnaud gmail com>]

I completely disagree with you.
I always found a Mac completely disorienting when you come from PC world. New mouse, new menu, new names.
You need some time to get used to it ... but in the end you may completely fall in love with the difference.
Who said that you need to be easy to understand to be successful (or in our case efficient).

Seriously, Linux user are people that are different and that love the difference. Just look at the small percentage of linux use on the desktop (between 1 to 5%) and the number of choices you have KDE, XFCE, Gnome, Enlightenment ... just to name a few.

Linux users are such because they embrace the difference, because they love the learning curve you need to get used to your new system. A system that is readily accessible is simply boring. If you offer the same UI as everybody else, why bother doing the project.


On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 06:39 -0500, Rob Walker wrote:
>     Although I do appreciate many of the enhancements to GNOME 3, I believe there are a few grievous mistakes that seem to be due to missing principles in the Design Principles list. Here is a principle that is essential that I believe the current Design Principles is lacking:
>     
>     Stated several ways along similar themes (take them as a whole, not individually):
>     
>     1. "Forcing revolutionary interfaces on users is not as good as being able to use old and new in tandem."
>     2  "Two words: READILY ACCESSIBLE"
>         "Don't make the user have to remember."
>         "Don't assume the user has expertise and prior knowledge."
>         "A good UI makes it easy for the user to educate herself/himself to make future work easier, but without requring users to remember that education in order to work."
>     
>     Current design choices:
>     
>     1. The press releases and literature portray categorization of applications as a burden because the user has to "remember" the categories an application belongs to.
>     2. The most readily available way to find applications is to use the Search.
>     
>     These design choices can be criticized in light of these counter-points:
>     
>     1. Search requires to have prior knowledge of names. If you're a new user, you have NO IDEA what the names of apps are. If you are exploring a new system, categorized apps helped you learn what to use. Allow people to work faster with search if they already know names, but don't require it or APPEAR to require it.
>     2. Let's say that Search allows you to search by category rather than app name (which is a valid strategy).
>         A. It is not obvious to a new user that you can do this.
>         B. You're back to remembering categories again, which the current principles wanted to avoid.
>         C. Yes, this can be improved by allowing apps to be in more than one category.
>         D. **Could we perhaps support an optional tag-cloud feature where users can tag apps with categories that can be shared with other users?** Let the users be the experts of usability.
>     3. How do you avoid having to remember categories? Make the categories READILY ACCESIBLE. The best way to do this is to retain the feature of categorized apps just as users have always expected with a semi-traditional version of a "start menu" or similar, but don't require it. In other words, the new design choices SHOULD NOT be mutually exclusive with the old.
>     4. Prior research papers on user interfaces and usability studies still have yet to yield interfaces that don't frustrate a great deal of users. They should be consulted, but with heavy skepticism and counter-research by consulting your grandmother how well she understands the UI. :)
>     
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