[OT] How long before..

[Richmond]

On 08/01/2012 10:40 AM, Peter Alcibiades wrote:
> Its not a problem that is confined to Apple - though Apple maybe sets the
> tone.  You can see it in Linux too.  Both Gnome 3 and KDE 4 have gone
> through a phase of total user interface redesign.  In both cases the result
> was pretty unusable - though it doubtless conformed perfectly to HIG
> correctness.  Then if you download and install Windows 8, as Chipp hints,
> the UI replaces something ugly but usable with something that makes ordinary
> work flows far more time consuming and difficult, with no apparent gain.
>
> Apple's role in this is quite important, because they have the illusion that
> they are the guardians of 'usability'.  This increasingly has become nothing
> to do with actual use, but with the look of a screen on a first impression.
> In addition, in a move which is well known from politics, they have moved
> from thinking of the UI and the OS as a whole as being something which
> offers services to the users, to thinking of them as something which governs
> and controls the users.
>
> The 'save as' fiasco illustrates this perfectly, and it has its analogues in
> Gnome.  The aim has become positively to prevent users from doing things
> which are thought of as incorrect in some way.  Its none of it real world
> evidence based.  Yes, we have the alleged laws of HIG, but they are not
> based on peer reviewed empirical observations of people at work
> accomplishing tasks.  They are based on highly theoretical arguments about
> distance a cursor travels.  This is a recipe for superstition and political
> correctness and endless recycled erroneous assumptions.
>
> What the HIG movement is failing to acknowledge is the diversity of human
> taste and working habits, and the diversity of application configuration and
> work flows in a given installation.  One size does not fit all.  This is the
> fundamental ideological flaw in all these obligatory redesigns.  The aim
> should be to accommodate more not less ways of working.
>
> There is an interesting minor version of this in theming.  The idea with
> prohibiting theming is that some color and shape schemes are 'right' for
> everyone.  It is basically, as Torvalds said, UI authoritarianism.
>
> Anyway, personally I have moved to Fluxbox.  I am sure it breaches every HIG
> rule in the book, but for me its fast, simple (except when I have to edit
> the custom menus by hand in xml), and it gets out of the way.  Funnily
> enough, the one naive user I have taken to Fluxbox adapted to it almost
> instantly without comment.  It just worked.  I showed right clicking to
> launch an app, and also set the file manager to open automatically on a
> different workspace so it was ready to hand.  Five minutes later they were
> working fine, and there are no calls.  Well, not about the UI and OS anyway.
>
> Try this some time.  It will instantly persuade you that all the HIG dogmas
> are entirely based on nothing more than superstition and control freakery.
> There is no scientific foundation at all, its just people who know no more
> about it than anyone else imposing their personal work flow prejudices on
> the rest of us.  Or trying to.  In Linux, its not really possible to do
> this, as Gnome and KDE and now Canonical have found out.  You just get your
> product forked or made over.  MS will find this out too, and will have to
> change.  Don't suppose Apple will however.  The habit is too ingrained, and
> OSX becoming such a small part of the business that it will not attract the
> level of management attention required to force the team to change.
>
>
>

Very well put indeed. If I ever buy a new Mac it will ONLY be for 
testing software I am developing.

The feeling that one knows best as to what end-users want seems to grow 
with success; our friend Mark Shuttleworth seems to be making more 
judgement calls than he used to.

I am currently using xfce 4.10 on my Linux box(es) at home (with Avant 
Window Manager as a 'dock'), and "obviated" GNOME 2 in my school.

I use xfce 4.10 becaue I like it, and it suits my needs, just as you, 
Peter, use Fluxbox. But, we should
always remember Chairman Mao and his "let a thousand blossoms bloom" and 
what happened subsequently!

One of the initial premises of Linux was that folks could muck it around 
to their heart's content,
especially with regard to the GUI; if this is lost and/or removed a very 
great part of the appeal of Linux
for the average Joe will be lost.