Beyond the Code
or, how to win friends, influence people and make a living by writing open source software. It's not just about the code.
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Tuesday 16 June 2009, 3:27 PM
Ubuntu aims at healing Linux's usability wounds
It'll be interesting to see the results. One of the problems with usability is that often what people tell you is the problem isn't really what's wrong. There's a mantra in usability of "Don't ask — observe", and it exists for a very good reason. You'll get a far more accurate picture of what in a UI slows people down by watching them than you will from self-reported systems like this.
This isn't to say One Hundred Paper Cuts is a bad idea; It's not, and I'd even urge you to take part. However, the results will be interesting to read as a study of human behaviour, as well as helping Canonical make Linux more usable.
PreviousComments on this post
Thank You Mr Shuttleworth and the guys at Canonical!!!
That is EXACTLY the issue that needs to be addressed in Linux.
The user doesn't give a hoot for what's under the desktop, he wants the desktop to work well and fast.
He wants it to be reliable and do the same thing each time and it needs to do what he expects it to do.
Spell checkers need to be available everywhere he types.
Spreadsheets need to work like word processor software just with boxes, columns and rows.
> they're looking for specific, system-wide issues that aren't true bugs, but still get in the way of ease of use
The keyboard! Joking aside, I think it's a good way to go, ironing out the niggles. I had a look and my own personal niggle and it was there already: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/387934
This is one of the key reasons I use Ubuntu, because installation and use has always been a relative breeze compared to other distros I tried.
Xwindowsjunkie > He wants it to be reliable and do the same thing each time and it needs to do what he expects it to do.
I think maybe there are women users out there too?!
