25 Jul
2005
25 Jul
'05
6:12 a.m.
I think the key question is about usability from
the first minute the application is loaded.
[...]
As much I think
that you need to research the topic to do anything vaguely
complex in your recording, the target for usability should
be to limit the required research to a minimum.
[...]
This operation is intuitive in Cooledit, Audacity
and even video editing tools such as Premiere. To me, this
is a real flaw in usability.
[...]
I think Linux applications
just need some usability love to make this happen.
[...]
I do agree that the needs for a new user and pro user
are
different, but the only real difference is that the pro
user goes into a far deeper level of detail. As such, I
don't see how usability necessarily has to be different.
[...]
It seems to me that applications such as Ardour simply
need
some usability discussion, testing and implementation.
[...]
Even
cursory glances at Ardour reveal a range of usability flaws
- even simple issues such as dialog design, right up to
structural issues.
[...]
Because you have used the term »usability« a lot, I'd like to
add that i also think that addressing usability could help a
lot, especially in the Linux audio world. It cannot solve all
issues, but a lot.
Unfortunately, usability needs time and resources. And I
understand well that a programmer of free software is more
interested in doing research and write new features than care
about usability issues.
I have held a talk about usability issues on Linux audio on
this years LAC:
http://sysexxer.sourceforge.net/files/lac2005-Linux-audio-usability.pdf
I often got very positive feedback when filing usability
feature requests for various projects, but sometimes I even
got told »The user should read the documentation« ;-) .
I agree with you that usability could reduce the amount of
documentation needed a lot.
Best regards
ce