Edging Toward the Ninety/Ten
Over at OFB I've posted a new commentary that follows up a previous one on the need for desktop simplicity. The point, in short, is that Mac OS X fulfills the needs of the 90% of users who use only 10% of the features without alienating prosumers. This is done by wise interface choices. GNOME is trying to copy this and Firefox has already essentially copied this as well.
This time I tried to take a more conciliatory tone so that hopefully readers will focus on the need to accommodate the average user rather than my philosophical disagreements with the GUI design of KDE and OpenOffice.org. I do not believe KDE ought to be changed, but rather the community should see the need to throw support behind projects that do aim for the “90/10” feature set if it wishes to mainstream GNU/Linux desktops. So far response has been good; hopefully it will encourage more thinking on this topic. The article does not apply to just GNU/Linux, so give it a read if you want to hear my thoughts on UI design.
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Re: Edging Toward the Ninety/Ten
Before I begin, please consider my statements, opinion driven but with logic behind them. Did that make sense??
“Mozilla simply did more than the average user wanted – so much more that many of those users were intimidated by it.”
My brother the Chiro uses Mozilla, and has no issues with all the extra stuff. He asked if he needed to use them, and when told no, so he just ignored it. When I first started teaching my Intro to Web Design course I encourged all my non-technical/no programming skills students to use Mozilla. Not one was intimidated by it. Most felt they were getting more for less. Sorta like TVs, sometimes when you pay more for a nice one you get features that you really don’t need, or will ever use. People are not confused by them, they just ignore them. Heck owners manuals even have little cute statments now saying stuff to the effect of, “if you don’t know what this feature is, then you probably don’t need to adjust it.”
“So we must ask: is including cut, copy and paste on the toolbar really helping anybody?” I say YES! Many none technical people understand how Word works. Cut, Copy and Paste are there and they use them. When you first run notepad, CCP is there. Audacity, CCP is there. Excel, there. IMHO, CCP needs to be there to allow a certain level of continuity among programs.
BTW, I find it interesting how you use Konqueror as an example. The only people who will ever see that browser are people who are consciencely seeking an alternative OS. Not your average user IMHO.
“In just four years, Mac OS X has gone from a delay-laden buggy OS to the most popular and polished desktop Unix-like system available.”
With all due respect, I think this is more of an opinion then a statement of fact. (hope that didn’t sound to harsh, if it did, sorry
) For me Gnome is a nightmare, KDE is just OK, and XFCE and Flux are far better choices. But like I said, that’s me. I also don’t have any deskptop icons, I am no fan of throbbing icons, or bouncing ones, or any type of process hogging animation. Nor do I like the playskool type icons that are now even found in XFCE. Give me the program logo for an icon anyday.
I guess for some of us, a plain jane interface which “just” gets the job done is just what the doctor ordered.
Re: Edging Toward the Ninety/Ten
Some people will find Mozilla good. Chiropractors, especially, I guess — my cousin the Chiropractor loved Mozilla when I introduced him to it a few years ago (although I think he likes Firefox even better).
Regarding cut, copy and paste: I was referring to those functions within a file manager, not in other apps. Many people seem to understand cut-and-paste in Word, but fewer “get it” in a file manager. Now, Macs don’t have copy-and-paste tool bar icons almost anywhere, save for Word, but I wouldn’t necessarily argue for that.
I chose Konqueror because the article was focusing on getting the GNU/Linux desktop better equipped for enterprise deployments. If you’re a business considering alternative OSes other than Windows, you’ll probably encounter Konqueror, unless you only consider the Mac. I’m mostly thinking about users who get a desktop pre-equipped from the IT department, not home users. As Gael Duval of Mandrakesoft noted in my OFB interview within him earlier this week, the GNU/Linux desktop is ready for business deployments (which includes lots of “average” users), but not as much for “average” home users.
Regarding Mac OS X, it is part commentary and part fact (hey, this is a commentary piece after all!
). It is, unquestionably, the best selling *nix desktop OS and it became that in just four years. The polished part is my own comment, but I’ve encountered virtually no one who has used Mac OS X for any length of time and felt it was not the most polished OS they’ve ever used. Most of them are “converted” if they are around it for more than a week. Even Slashdot’s CmdrTaco uses OS X.
I’ve always liked a nice looking interface (hence why I started off in GNU/Linux with KDE even though it took much fighting to get it to work at the time — it had just hit 1.0), but Mac OS X’s polish has more to do with how everything “just works” than how it looks. All the apps work together and “feel” like they are organized properly. Given that most GUI’s are merely copies of Microsoft copy of Mac OS, the big difference in OS X is that you have all the familiar stuff without the Microsoft corruptions.
What you are seeing with GNOME is that GNOME is going back to the source (Mac OS) and copying some ideas from it directly, as well as adding its own twists.