[Usability] Reaching Users

[kerberos piestar net]

Firstly, I think bugzilla has no place in any discussions of  
usability.  Bugs are absolute, and bug tracking software is designed  
for people to report, and then developers to fix.  Usability issues  
are largely subtle, subjective and often require some debate.  While  
the bugzilla approach may apply to minor issues 'Why can't I use my  
scrollwheel here, etc' it is simply unable to handle anything that  
could be considered innovative or new.  It is my belief that bugzilla  
will never lead to a substantial improvement in software - If you  
placed Windows 95 on a bugtracker would it fix the fundamental issues  
with usability, security and stability?  Architectural and large  
ranging issues are simply a bad fit for bug tracking software.  It is  
also intimidating and works in absolutes, while usability doesn't -  
it's more of a discussion.  I would be very hesitant to post anything  
non-trivial to a bugtracker - it's simply not the place.

Secondly, and ironically, there is no greater divide in the software  
community between developers and users than in the FOSS community.   
While most closed source, commercial software has various easy ways  
for users to give feedback, Linux doesn't.

Barrier 1: The majority of Linux distro's (Ubuntu and Suse to name  
two) have no place on their forum for discussing ideas or engaging the  
community - it is all one sided 'support'.  There are plenty of forums  
for discussing how to get your sound card working, but nowhere for  
discussing a way to make fixing it yourself simpler.

Barrier 2: The lack of any feedback forums above is understandable in  
context.  The main distro's package the upstream apps and release them  
- they are not directly responsible for problems in Gnome's etc  
codebase.  As a result there is no real way of knowing who made or  
maintains which program or module to suggest improvements to.   
Identifying and reporting anything non-trivial is in itself  
non-trivial.  Unless you want to blog about it, there is largely no  
venue for feedback.

Thirdly, there seems very few systems designed to engage such users at  
the developer end.  As a developer myself there seems to be nowhere to  
go to discuss such issues.  I was hoping that given the 'community  
contributed' nature there would be pages of free-flowing ideas and  
discussions, but if there is I can't find it and I am sure neither  
could the majority of other people.  It seems the nexus point for  
Gnome usability discussions is a near-dead mailinglist.

Windows Vista was pretty rubbish, I am sure there is no debate over  
this fact.  Windows 7 is pretty damn good and a worthy successor to  
XP, and the reason that it is so good is because the massive backlash  
of hate and criticism of Vista (by an audiance largely looking to find  
fault) gave them a massive list of key issues to address.  I would  
place good money on the fact that if Vista was well recieved, 7 would  
not have been anywhere as good as it is now.

Free software though, as stated above, has no real outlet for users to  
speak their mind about problems.  The community is largely self  
censoring (as who would complain about free food?) and the people who  
are not happy with the software largely just go back to Windows/OSX.   
I always feel that the opinions of 1 unhappy customer is more useful  
than the opinions of 100 happy ones, but the Linux community in  
general consists entirely of 'happy ones' - everyone who is unhappy  
just leaves, rather than sticks around and tries to change things.

Before any real progress can be made on usability and improving the  
marketshare of Gnome (and Linux as a result) these issues should  
largely be addressed.  Users need a place to say why they don't like  
something without being called idiots or trolls.  There is very little  
point in having a community contributed OS that the community cannot  
contribute to.  Most users can contribute ideas after all, but few can  
contribute code - which seems to be the sole focus.

Flame away!