[mythtv-users] Why Free Software has poor usability ?

Jay R. Ashworth jra at baylink.com
Fri Aug 8 14:49:05 UTC 2008


On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 06:44:09PM -0400, Jerry Rubinow wrote:
>    I've used Office 2K7 with the ribbon interface. (IMHO) MS has
>    clearly put a lot of thought into useability with this. It's one
>    of the most well-designed and intuitive interfaces I've ever used,
>    and I believe a lot of smart people spent a lot of time on it. Try
>    playing around with it with an objective eye, not as a comparison
>    to the previous version of Office.

Alas, "that's all well and good", but it doesn't take into account the
probably tens of millions of manhours that have been spent learning and
teaching the old interface.

And it completely violates the "Windows is a pretty neat idea because
you only have to learn how to run apps once" argument in favor of WIMP
interfaces in general.

Efficiency: fixing the problem right.

Effectiveness: fixing the right problem.

Cheers,
-- jra

-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com                     '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://photo.imageinc.us             +1 727 647 1274

	     Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
	     Those who count the vote decide everything.
	       -- (Josef Stalin)


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