[Usability] The Pathetic State of the GNU/Linux Desktop

[Jacob Beauregard <jake13jake comcast net>]

The Pathetic State of the GNU/Linux Desktop


  1.

     Accessibility


Let me start this by saying that at least KDE puts Windows to shame. I'm 
not going to speak  so much for GNOME, although I find GNOME to be 
easier to configure with its very limited functionality. I will also be 
mentioning Apple a lot in this letter. Still, the accessibility of a 
Linux desktop frankly sucks. It's not so much that people aren't 
programming a lot of very functional applications. It's not so much that 
people aren't programming good things. It's that our programmers aren't 
keeping everyone in mind. There is no excuse for a blind person not to 
be able to use a mouse, it's just that nobody has made this available to 
them. There's no excuse that a blind person has to use a long-winded 
screen reader when they're tabbing through a panel or their desktop.

I would say that the most usable application for a blind person on any 
platform to be instant messengers. Why? Because they are capable of 
blaring out annoying sounds to make us extremely aware that some event 
just happened. The surprising thing is, that the event is usually easy 
to identify from the sound used. Notification is a great tool for 
accessibility. I don't see it used enough.

I also mentioned long-winded screen readers when tabbing through a 
panel. I would find it annoying to use a screen reader to tab through a 
panel for the same reason as I would find it annoying to have text 
without an icon for every element on the panel. Why hasn't anyone made a 
field for iconic sounds instead of using solely iconic images? A person 
with a blindfold on would love it. It would save them a lot of time.

What is the best technology that has come out for people with 
accessibility problems? The wonderful concept of the podcast. Wow, Apple 
actually helps accessibility? That's news. However, a few people I know 
are deathly afraid of the impact the iPhone could make. Why? Because 
nobody has developed technology for the blind community to use touch 
screens, and in the same sense it could be said that nobody has 
developed a successful technology for the blind to be able to use a 
mouse. They've been scared of the desktop environment pioneered by Apple 
since the beginning. It doesn't have to be that way. I mean, how can my 
friend Karl pwn everyone in Counter-Strike being blind? The primary 
cause of fear for touch screens is that they don't provide tactile 
feedback. I don't believe that tactile feedback for touch screens in a 
practical sense is in the immediate future. What can be done about this? 
Can't we still exploit the use of audio feedback? As well, the scenario 
can always be mimicked by the use of a mouse. Accessibility is a killer app.

Another thing that comes to mind with accessibility. I recently stumbled 
onto a Slashdot article about Linus telling the GNOME people that 
Metacity is very limiting. It's true. Not being able to independently 
map I/O functionality (such as right-click actions being hardcoded) is 
something that limits accessibility.


  2.

     Interoperability


Now I will go on to mention interoperability. Let's see, I have like a 
gajillion applications that use tabs now, whereas before Opera and 
Firefox came out, the only applications that I could note using tabs 
were used with spreadsheets (a favorite tool of the blind, I might add). 
One thing I notice about all of these applications using tabs, usually 
they have varying functionality. Some let you drag and drop a tab and 
have it create a new window, or drag a tab to another tab bar of the 
same application and it will merge into that window. Some have X 
buttons, some don't. Some applications like hiding the tabs if there's 
only one open. Tabs can be easily compared to window lists. I'll tell 
you what I see with this, a huge potential gain for functionality and 
interoperability.


First, since tabs with X buttons on them have proved usable and 
successful, why not have the functionality to add the -[]X stuff to the 
task bar? The only difference between the task bar and a tab bar is that 
the task bar generally handles multitasking whereas a tab bar generally 
organizes several things that aren't all being used at once. I must say, 
this would seem more like a KDE concept than a GNOME concept, because 
I've already submitted this to GNOME's BugZilla to have it canceled as 
they said that people usually use the windows list to cycle through 
applications and it might get in the way. That doesn't mean it wouldn't 
make a good optional feature, and I very much think it would make a 
great default feature.

Secondly, why in the world haven't all applications come together on the 
dragging a tab out opens that tab in a new window, and dragging a tab 
back in merges it into the current window, and closes its own? One 
reason that people generally don't like tabs is that it gets into the 
way of their multitasking, where this kind of feature overcomes that, 
giving more power to the user. This is where I'm going to start into 
interoperability as well. Let's say I have an HTML document open. I 
think it would make sense to be able to drag and drop a tab hosting an 
HTML document into another application that can handle HTML documents 
(ex. a text editor). However, there would be certain challenges for 
this. Most applications with tabs, you can save a tab as multiple file 
types. Having a drag and drop capability would have to be aware of the 
file types it can open another application's file in. It's still a good 
idea to offer interoperability via tab bars.


What I must state is that accessibility ought to be taken into account 
before everything else. If adding functionality will improve 
accessibility, one must always take that functionality into account. 
This is something that hasn't been taken into account very often in the 
development of most desktop platforms, and yet it's very important to a 
lot of people.


Yours Truly,

Jacob Beauregard


P.S. And now I will mention that this entire letter is stream of 
consciousness, so good luck reading it.