It's worse than that
Awhile back, Eric Raymond laid out the pain involved in setting up a remote printer using Linux. I came across this post today, which is a response to that, and to the general problem - up to the quoted section below, it's quite reasonable:
But the whole A.T. angle is quite disingenuous. It wasn't A.T. who couldn't connect to a shared printer. It was Raymond himself who couldn't figure it out. Yes, I see the point that if it were so easy and obvious that A.T. could do it, a nerd like Raymond could do it too. But this is putting the horse way in front of the carriage. In what world does the "archetypal nontechnical user" have two computers connected by Ethernet? When A.T. needs to configure a printer, it's going to be connected directly to her computer, not shared over a network.
Hmmm - I don't think this guy has seen real users up close either. My daughter is in a girl scout troop, and I was talking to the co-leader of the troop the other day. They have a home PC, and a notebook the husband uses at work. They recently signed up for cable modem service, and got Comcast to set up a WiFi router for them - this is a standard Comcast service now. These people are not geeks - and yet here they are, multiple PC's set up on a LAN, with a router, and shared printers in the mix. Here's a cluestick - this is becoming very, very common - as I said above, Comcast now offers to set up a WiFi router as a part of their standard installation. The upshot is, it's worse than you think:
Furthermore, the "I thought I was the only one" response begs the question: what planet are these guys from? Isn't it common knowledge that desktop Linux usability tends to suck? How can anyone write an essay proposing to fix this without mentioning, let alone responding to, Matthew Thomas's seminal essay, "Why Free Software usability tends to suck"?
It's not just Linux that baffles people. Go ask around about anbti-virus software, or firewalls - you'll get a pile of "huh, what?" responses. I had to install my neighbor's printer (not a network printer even!) on Windows, because they had no idea how. Linux has usability issues? heck, PC's have usability issues. Even Macs are too hard for most people. Don't believe me? See all those VCR's with flashing 12:00 clocks? There's your evidence - people want an appliance that just works, not a fulltime hobby that they need to tweak day and night. Linux, Windows, and yes, Macs - are all too hard for most people's tastes. The entire industry has quite a ways to go before we get to real "ease of use" as most consumers understand the term.
On an amusig side note, there's a fair bit of irony here:
If there's a glib, nutshell synopsis for why Linux desktop software tends to suck, it's this: Raymond and his ilk have no respect for anyone but themselves.
They have no respect for the fact that UI design is a special talent.
They have no respect for the fact the good UI design requires a tremendous amount of time and effort.
Heh. This from a guy who's site is dark gray with white text. Sheesh. Could you make it harder on my eyes if you tried???. Now, having said all that, there's a really good point down towards the bottom of the post:
It's pretty hard to sell "services and support" for software that fits that bill. The model that actually works is selling the software itself. This is politically distasteful to open source zealots, but it's true - and it explains the poor state of usability in open source software.
Raymond also complains about CUPS's shoddy and inaccurate documentation, but that's just another side of the same glove. Technical documentation is also hard work, and requires talent to be done well. Writers need paychecks, too. (Trust me.)
Very, very true - and it's what Clemens Vasters was getting at here - a post that was profoundly misunderstood - see this response by Ryan Lowe, for example. There's an old adage that says a lot here: You get what you pay for. If you aren't willing to pay, you are far, far less likely to get useful things out the back end....
Comments
The Free Software Meritocracy is to Blame for Poor Usability
[Ryan Lowe] April 7, 2004 3:30:41.239
You get what you pay for is right. The worst thing (for consumers) is that free software is written by geeks for geeks, not everyday people. If you want to make money in computing, you can surely beat free software that way (and beat Apple, like you said they aren't perfect either). It will take quite a while for the free software people to give a damn about usability for the everyman, because the everyman isn't represented in their "process". That's if you call Build-It-Fix-It (BIFI) a process. But that's the meritocracy in which they live -- they want to impress other geeks, not their parents. They probably wouldn't even be able to deal with the kind of feedback they'd get from the general population. They'd rather deal with people that had half a clue and could submit half decent bug reports. OK so it sounds easy enough: hire a usability expert and beat free software that way. ;)
Untitled
[Hmmm...] April 7, 2004 15:02:54.181
So you get what you pay for, huh? No. You pay what you think what you are getting is worth. You can't just say "all this commercial software from MS is a bunch of baloney" and say that "you get what you pay for" in the same blog. If you were getting what you pay for, MS software would be excellent. Capitalism eventually dictates to get maximum profit. That doesn't even have a connection with things like "quality for price". It's all about "what do I have to do to get customers to shell out money so that I get maximum profit". If consumers must be educated into getting baloney for shelling out tons of money (e.g.: J2EE), then too bad. Against this unstoppable desire to play Monopoly for the rest of your life and win, I think you should put the people that say "I write this because I enjoy it". Sometimes they may get overboard (like greed usually does), but in order to be able to write stuff because you enjoy it, you need the freedom to do that. And that includes monetary freedom. If you don't want to play Monopoly, you need an environment in which you can do so. But oh dear, I guess prescription drugs should be as expensive as possible because sure enough you're getting rid of your sickness, aren't you? The same for everything. Don't you see? A few people that can't live without playing real life Monopoly have sold us the idea that in order to be happy (have a life), we have to play the game, and thus be unhappy. Most people don't like playing Monopoly, because most people don't enjoy their job. And some people are finding out that in the land of Monopoly, people are useless and deserve no job whatsoever. Monopoly rules don't give a damn, if you're broke the other players couldn't care less for your well being. I think what's going on is that the people playing Monopoly, the capitalists, could be finding out that they don't really enjoy what they do - deep down, it doesn't make them really happy. At least it keeps them extremely busy so they don't have time to notice. That some geeks enjoy themselves for free is a total insult to their life religion. While we live in a society structured around money, you also need to realize who benefits from it, really. Not you. It's a billionaire game you're playing, and chances are you will never be one of them. But because you play the game, you allow billionaires to keep playing and ultimately control everything. Those who cast the votes decide nothing, and those who count the votes decide everything. So... can't we enjoy ourselves more and be happier achieving things rather than having things? When we die we won't take our precious capitalist belongings with us. Things are rather meaningless. When you evaluate your life, will you have to settle by declaring that, like so many others, you were reasonably unhappy yet reasonably successful at playing Monopoly? Or do you set a higher bar for yourself and achieve something different? There is a balance between these two, and neither side is listening to the other.
Re: It's worse than that
[James Robertson] April 7, 2004 15:53:54.372
Comment on It's worse than that by James Robertson
MS Software is oriented - for the most part - at consumers. It's still harder to use than most people need, but it's far and away better in that regard than most Linux/Unix stuff. The tension is the same that exists relative to bugs and "more perfect" software - people have thus far been more willing to deal with instability than with high prices - but they also want basic ease of use. "Free" is useless if you can't figure out how to use it, and that's the rock that a lot of Open Source software founders on...
Re: It's worse than that
[Rich Demers] April 7, 2004 16:58:02.354
Comment on It's worse than that by Rich Demers
"Free" is useless if you can't figure out how to use it..."
That's what motivated me to write a Users Guide and a Tutorial for BottomFeeder. Jim tells me people have said they read/use/refer-to them, but I have had no direct feedback, so I don't know what works and what doesn't.
Everyone seems to think that software should just be "intuitive," that you should be able to just "figure it out" without a lot of instruction. Personally, whenever I try to use a new program without reading the documentation I do figure out the simple stuff, based on prior experience with similar programs (and my native intelligence!), but I miss out on all the fine points that would make the program really useful. And that's where good documentation comes in.
The problem is that "good documentation" is difficult and expensive to produce. The larger, more complex the program, the harder it is to document, but the more the documentation is needed.
Documentation is a key issue
[Thomas M] April 8, 2004 6:54:44.398
IMHO, Documentation is _the_ key argument pro commercial software. It's a huge advantage if a product has a good documentation. Unfortunately, there is no marketing made with good documentation, and worse: there are a lot of commercial procucts whose documentation sucks a lot - probably to make you buy support from them, too. But if the documentation sucks, I can say: why buy an expensive product with documentation that sucks if I can also have an open source product whose documentation probably sucks. At least in the latter case, you maybe have the possibility to "use the source, luke".