[LAU] [OT] GNOME UI

[david]

On 07/11/2012 11:21 PM, Simon Wise wrote:
> On 12/07/12 03:30, david wrote:
>
>> I'm firmly convinced that the GNOME design team begins every session
>> with the
>> question, "What more functionality can we remove from users today?"
>> Eventually,
>> the GNOME UI will consist of a single button in the middle of the screen
>> reading, "Shutdown computer". ;-)
>
> Perhaps its a matter of what users and platforms they are catering for
> ... a UI that works well on the smaller, hand held devices with touch
> interfaces rather than a mouse and keyboard is very important if that is
> what you are using, and lots of devices are like that now. It is
> becoming the most familiar interface.
>
> It is easy to confuse 'intuitive' with 'familiar' and believe that what
> one has learned is somehow the natural way to do things, but this newer
> style of interface is becoming the most common one => familiar =>
> 'intuitive'. The Gnome version isn't the result of a collection random
> decisions along the way, it was described and planned in detail years
> ago, when the work building it was starting to get serious. Looking
> closely at UI habits derived from hardware with particular limits and
> histories, then deciding what is just habit and what really contributes
> to a good working environment, is a very important part of making a good
> UI. See this 2009 document:
>
> http://www.gnome.org/%7Emccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf
>
> it predicts the Gnome 3 interface fairly accurately, and is clearly the
> origin of their current design principles page a couple of years down
> the track:
>
> https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Principles

Just shows me that they've been practicing their bad design philosophy 
for many years. I have tried GNOME3 and KDE4. I found both got in the 
way far more than they helped. I also have used GNOME2, and didn't like 
it, either. While there is value in simplifying things, there is also 
the danger of simplifying too much.

"Nothing is 'intuitive' in its fullest sense." Everything you think is 
"intuitive" about any computer interface is something you learned about 
that interface - and have forgotten you learned. Interfaces that violate 
well-established, well-learned user expectations and experiences are not 
intuitive. They are rude and make users feel stupid. They make users 
feel dictated to by "I know better than you how you should do this task" 
"designers" who far too many times are more wrapped up in being "kewl" 
and buffing up their egos than in producing a good, functional UI for 
others. (Same phenomenon occurs amongst graphic designers pretending to 
be web designers.)

But then, I'm weird. People blog about how tablet/smartphone UIs will 
take over the desktop. I think the whole idea of coming up with a common 
UI that is perfect for both desktop and tablet/smartphone use is a grand 
exercise in misguided stupidity. Fortunately for Linux, Windows 8 seems 
to be making that great mistake for us. Now I just hope Linux desktop 
environments won't do their usual thing and imitate it ... At least 
Libre/OpenOffice seem to have refused to imitate the idiotic MS Office 
"ribbon" interface.

For audio users, there's the added layer of user expectations and usage 
modes that arises from their musical training and experience. If you're 
a musician who doesn't read music, you might consider sheet music 
completely useless: "Why are the developers wasting their time on that?" 
Someone who's trained and reads music would respond, "How could you 
possibly do without it?" and find it difficult (as I do) to work with a 
bunch of musicians who don't read music, yet want everything tightly 
rehearsed and planned and well-prepared ahead of time. Case in point: 
lead guitarist of my church band. He's terrified of improvising. (He 
suffers from severe perfectionism.) He works very hard on his solos. But 
if something happens and he has to suddenly add an extra measure or two 
- he's lost. His only option is to go back and repeat his entire solo 
from the beginning. We have a violinist in our band who used to play in 
classical orchestras, yet she can't read a note.

My guess for most "intuitive" UI for audio users? The primary instrument 
they play! ;-)

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/