[Usability]Re: Short article on OSS usability

[Michael Toomim <toomim uclink4 berkeley edu>]

Calum Benson wrote:
> > From this month's Usability Professionals' Association periodical:
> http://www.upassoc.org/voice/vol5no1/open_source.htm

This list of topics sounds familiar...

> When there is some look into usability, the discussion often centers
> around one of the following topics:
>
> - Here's my new widget, what do you think?
> - Here's a screenshot, what do you think?
> - Users don't want that.
> - Users want this…
> - Duplicating a major vendor's approach can't be wrong"

Now, is this bad?

- Is it bad to post a screenshot of your program on the usability list 
and ask for advice?

- Is it bad to offer an educated opinion about what users want?

- Is it bad to imitate the approach of a major vendor which already puts 
an enormous amount of effort into perfecting the usability of their 
approach?

Or is the author saying that *other* beneficial types of usability 
discussion are conspcuously absent from our mailing lists?  If so, what 
kind of discussion would be more useful?