Re: [Usability] New Paradigm of Computing for GNOME 3.0

[Diego Moya <turingt gmail com>]

On 10 February 2010 08:17, Allan Caeg wrote:
> Hello Usability People,
>
> I stumbled upon Matt Asay's article named The application is the new
> operating system http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10448883-16.html . I love

> the fact that a guy who think this way Canonical's new COO. This is what
> open source needs.

The article says, "The iPad is a new paradigm of human-computer interaction. The desktop is gone. The folders are gone. The documents live inside the app."  This is not a paradigm, this is a metaphor. The desktop metaphor is gone (which is a good thing, as manual window management is cumbersome) but it doesn't really defines new things people can do with computers, it only removes a few of the annoying ones.

A new paradigm would be something like End User Development - you know, allowing typical computer users (which are anybody who don't know a programming language) to _define_ new automatic processes instead of relying on the ones created by external developers.


>
> His points could be too radical for many Linux people, 

Which is a shame, because they're not that radical - it's just a little bit of conservatism-bashing. In my experience I've found that developers are extremely conservative with respect to their programming environments and the interaction metaphors they like to use (and create).


> but we're fortunate
> to have people who specialize in Usability and User Experience. 

True. This field has advanced ginormous steps in the past two decades thanks to the popularization of graphical personal computers, but many developers tend to not be aware of these advances - they still program using the interaction techniques of the late 70s (main application event loops, event-based triggering of subroutines, and throwing everything into a single application window with separate function points - all (mis)organized into lots of submenus.

 

On 10 February 2010 10:10, Thorsten Wilms  wrote:
> You better think about the whole system, including all kinds of users
> with varying needs and wants and the whole software life-cycle, if you
> want the best outcome (you need to know how that would be measured,

> too).

This is what "focusing on the user" means. It includes knowing which users not to serve. 

Which requires identifying them first. "All kinds of users" is not a design target.


> I you study what Apple does, you should keep in mind how they earn
> money. You think the iPad is all about focusing on users? 

Yes. It's focusing on the *right* users (for Apple).



>Are you sure
> it has nothing to do with taking as much control as possible over
> offering software? The actual underlying goal of making more money?

All private companies have that underlying goal. That is not incompatible with providing what the intended users need. I think Apple got it right in focusing on users with little computing experience/needs. 

This is what this article is about - open source software has not been that good for them before the Ubuntu distro (though some other distros and the Gnome project made the first important progress in that direction). The suggested solution (self-contained apps) is just one viable format for this, currently popular because of the success of the iPhone. As you say, this is not good for all users (only the majority of them) - so different solutions will evolve for the kind of users left behind.