Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio

On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 9:58 AM, Harry van Haaren &lt;harryhaaren(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Hi Linux Audio Developers, TL;DR; Discussing experience driven design for linux audio. I'd like to discuss the "age of experiences". Allow me 10 minutes of your time, to watch a video by Aral Balkan talk about development of technology, FLOSS, design, and the future. <las> HarryHaaren: interesting talk <las> HarryHaaren: i want to agree with him except for one major issue (for me) <las> HarryHaaren: i'm not interested in making "consumer tools" <HarryHaaren> las, I came across Aral's work recently, and its been very interesting for me anyway. <las> HarryHaaren: and if i'm not making consumer tools, then my model is not apple but tools for cabinetry <HarryHaaren> sure, valid point: I agree. <las> HarryHaaren: and everything he says would be total bullshit and totally inappropriate there <HarryHaaren> but I don't feel that's the case for the whole Linux-Audio eco-system <las> HarryHaaren: indeed <las> HarryHaaren: but basically, the bit that is missing is easily summarized: Live and plugins <las> HarryHaaren: these are where his "experience driven" stuff matters <las> HarryHaaren: and yes, i agree that it does matter <HarryHaaren> agreed: that happens to be just what i'm particularly interested in :D <las> HarryHaaren: he even uses the term "tools" <las> HarryHaaren: i think this is a serious abuse of the word, but he's not the one who started this <las> HarryHaaren: when my wife uses a computer, she really doesn't want tools, she wants his experience thing <las> HarryHaaren: tools are things people use to gain leverage over the world, so in some sense, it seems appropriate <HarryHaaren> I'd quite like some more of the experience thing - in the right places. And the power of "under-the-hood" available when/if required, agreed again <las> HarryHaaren: but they are also things that for centuries, people have expected to have to learn, to master <las> HarryHaaren: when i look at the design of iOS what i see is a huge effort to remove learning from the whole user experience <las> HarryHaaren: to make everything absolutely obvious (once you've learned a few basic ideas about the UI) <HarryHaaren> sure: not something i'm fond of for all situations: too much "generic" is bad in the arts / creative sectors IMO <las> HarryHaaren: when the *task* is simple, this seems appropriate <las> HarryHaaren: but when the *task* is not simple, i think its inappropriate <las> HarryHaaren: if you look at a table saw or a crosscut saw or a router, they fail almost every possible test of "user experience" <las> HarryHaaren: they are dangerous, loud and more or less completely opaque as far as how to use them to get a particular result <las> HarryHaaren: and yet .... <HarryHaaren> sure: but learn to use it and its no problem. I appreciate that, and i see how it applies to certain software too <las> HarryHaaren: yes, and the learning about the tool leads to learning about the task also <las> HarryHaaren: do you know how easy it would be to make a plugin called MakeItSoundBetter that just had 3 buttons? <las> HarryHaaren: "change it", "that was better", "that was worse" <las> HarryHaaren: people would love this "tool". and by using it, they would learn absolutely *nothing* about what they were doing <las> HarryHaaren: i don't want to help create that sort of world <las> HarryHaaren: on the other hand, i don't do much auto maintainance, so ... what does that say? :) <HarryHaaren> fair enough. I probably would. But let people click the "advanced" button, see the algorithms, and learn about the tool & the task _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev(a)lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev