[linux-audio-user] Usability vs Intuitability in Ardour

[Kevin Cosgrove]

On 25 July 2005 at 15:46, Ben Loftis <ben at glw.com> wrote:

> Most professional audio gear is like a bicycle.  A bike is
> certainly not intuitive to a first time user, but once you
> learn how to balance, steer, etc, you can get around faster
> than someone on foot.  This has sometimes been described as
> "intuitable" rather than intuitive.

Or, "discoverable" versus "usable".

Word is easy to discover for easy things to do. 'vi' is
*much* faster, if my 'vi' speed versus the 'Word' speed of my
compatriots is any gauge.  Pull-down menus are "intuitive", where
as hot-keys are not.  But, hot-keys get the work done quickly
once they're known.  Pull-down menus which list their hot-key
shortcuts in the menu are quite nice for me.  The Opera web
browser is one example of this.

> Professional audio tools can look quite alarming to the novice 
> but must allow a pro facing a tight deadline to get his or     
> her work done.  Ardour should strive to be intuitable, not     
> intuitive.  I think it is progressing in this direction quite  
> nicely.                                                        

Yes, Ardour was a little usable to me right away.  After a few
hours, and the tutorial, it became quite useful for 80% of what I
want to do with it.  There are still things that I need to learn.
On the other hand, I've used 3 different stand-alone DAWs, two
from Roland and one from BOSS.  Each of those was *much* more
difficult to use or learn than Ardour, and I needed to memorize
or write down the obscure button-press combinations & sequences
to be able to do even simple things.  That said, they are nice
units when driven right by someone expert at doing so.

Cheers...

--
Kevin