Poor usability? I've been using linux, apache, mysql, postgreSQL, and even MapServer for some time, and they give me virtually anything I want.

From desktop side, I find that OpenOffice is a lot easier to work with than MS Office 2007.

These are not usability problems in console applications, which are only designed for experienced users to get things done quickly. I don't know why you mentioned any of the things you did.

I can see his point. To the more technical minded, the software is easy enough to figure out. For the casual user, many things are not user friendly, though it is getting better. For example, in Windows to terminate a program you bring up the task manager, click on the non responding program, and click on end task. In some *nix implementations you open a terminal, type ps -ef | grep username, find the PID of the program, type kill -9 PID - quite a bit more complex than picking a name from a list.

Another thing I have noticed is the lack of consistency in different software packages - one does things one way and another program does a similar thing in a completely different method. This is confusing for the casual user as well and doesn't make for the best usability. Of course one of the big advantages of open source is that very thing, having alternatatives.

There's also xkill, which you run, your cursor turns into an X, and then you click on the window you want to kill. Which is nice.

Snover wrote:

These are not usability problems in console applications, which are only designed for experienced users to get things done quickly. I don't know why you mentioned any of the things you did.

Well I don't quite agree with GUI = better usability argument. Probably this is subjective, but take a look at MS Office 2007 for example; I got confused, and my mom got confused too. Note that we are of different background (I'm working in IT, while she is just "casual user"), yet both of us became confused (and frustrated) with Office 2007 GUI. Now compare it to OpenOffice, which has simpler and "not very sophisticated" GUI, yet OpenOffice is easier to use for both of us.

As for server applications, I've found many cases where GUI actually makes things more tedious. Take a look at MS Integration Services (the new name for Microsoft Data Transformation Services); it came with various tools and wizards like Lookup, Merge, Merge Join, etc that are supposed to help you in transforming tables. Problem is, using them is actually harder and more rigid than writing an SQL query. Let say you have three tables to be transformed into a single table; with handwritten query, all you need to do is write a simple INSERT..SELECT script with JOIN clauses, but with MS Integration Services, you have to do it "Microsoft way" which involves the confusing process of clicking and dragging various GUI tools while figuring how to tell those tools to give you what you want.

Fortunately MS Integration Services still allows you to put your handwritten query in their DTS package --I hope they don't eliminate the feature in MS SQL 2008.

I didn't say anything about graphical user interfaces promoting better usability, I was saying that "usability" in server applications doesn't make sense because they are designed to be powerful and functional, not simple and easy to use.

I'd bet that the only reason you find Office 2007 so hard to use is because you're already used to older versions of Office that had a different UI. Also, with your example of Microsoft Integration Services, if you didn't know SQL, the GUI would be infinitely easier to use than trying to write a functioning query in a box. I just don't think you're grasping what usability means in this context.

Snover wrote:

I didn't say anything about graphical user interfaces promoting better usability,

It's not your argument I disagreed with; it's the many comments in the slashdot article that equate usability with GUI.

Snover wrote:

I was saying that "usability" in server applications doesn't make sense because they are designed to be powerful and functional, not simple and easy to use.

"Usability" is less relevant in server application, but the point stands that GUI does not always make things easier, and that goes for server application as well. Try to create constraint with MS SQL 2005 GUI and you know what I mean.

Snover wrote:

I'd bet that the only reason you find Office 2007 so hard to use is because you're already used to older versions of Office that had a different UI.

Precisely. I think one thing that makes GUI easy is because we are already used to it. But learning a new set of GUI is not that easy.

Let's go take a look at Microsoft Integration Services Tutorial for example:

To add a Data Flow task […]
Show full quote

To add a Data Flow task

1. Click the Control Flow tab.

2. In the Toolbox, expand Control Flow Items, and drag a Data Flow Task onto the design surface of the Control Flow tab.

3. On the Control Flow design surface, right-click the newly added Data Flow Task, click Rename, and change the name to Extract Sample Currency Data.

Only three steps, and you have to look all around the screen to find all the objects mentioned in the Tutorial. Some GUI objects are easy to identify, like the "Control Flow tab", yet some others are not. For example, when I first learned how to use Integration Services, I wondered where the hell the "Control Flow design surface" was, until I realized that it was the large "palette" area under the Control Flow tab (why do they have to call it "design surface" instead of "palette" escapes me).

The case above is an example where learning GUI can be harder than learning command-based interface --especially when the Tutorial doesn't have screenshots to visually describe the GUI objects you're supposed to manipulate.

Snover wrote:

Also, with your example of Microsoft Integration Services, if you didn't know SQL, the GUI would be infinitely easier to use than trying to write a functioning query in a box.

Not really. Simple tasks, yes, but more complex tasks require you to combine various GUI tools and make them working together to get what you want --which is not infinitely easier than writing a query.

Dumbing down software to fix poor usability and make it more usable to the masses is definitely not a way to go, imo.

Depends on where the software is to be used.

The whole point of a GUI is to make the software behind it more accessible and easier to use. Sorry KAN, but your arguments are way off base here. Open Source software has seen a distinct rise in take up since the widget and library (r)evolution in the last decade. WxWidgets, Allegro and SDL, have really opened up many Open Source apps to a much broader non platform specific non technical audience.

The article is spot on because it encourages developers to look further afield than just 'write an app to achieve and end that I want' which is the Alpha and Omega of much Open Source development - past which point others are welcome to take the code and improve it with additional functionality and prettiness which leads to end user confusion what with forks, CVS compiles and incompatibilities with various and sundry libraries/target platforms etc.

Open Source is evolving and its work flow needs to also evolve so that much of the confusion that goes along with its current practices can be managed better.

Personally, with regards to MS Office 2007, I think MS are deliberately making it harder to use so that people will see it as overvalued vs their longer term online microtransaction alternative.