KDE & Gnome Usability Engineers Agree on 'Unity' (OSNews) [LWN.net]

OSNews brings together KDE and Gnome usability engineers to talk about unifying the Linux desktop. "Some users want infinite number of options and preferences, while others prefer a non-bloated interface where the best options for them is already decided by the system. Now, we all know that there is no such thing as the "Perfect UI", but would it be acceptable to sacrifice certain configurability and... bloat --with the possible outcome of losing some users-- in order to provide a cleaner interface? Do you think such a move would simplify things for the user or do little but rob power from those who know enough to use it?"

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KDE & Gnome Usability Engineers Agree on 'Unity' (OSNews)

Posted Mar 11, 2003 12:39 UTC (Tue) by RobDavies (guest, #9930) [Link]

No it would not be acceptable, Havoc Pennington's efforts are throwing the baby out with
the bath water. The reason I am using Linux is because I want to control the computer,
not be controlled by corporate thinking about what meets my needs.

What is wrong with a simple config option, a meta-option if you like :

Interface Options :

[ ] Simple
[ ] Power User
[ ] Expert

That can grey out or hide options that would be distracting for new users. Expert would
turn on options that are 'risky' or experimental and help developers.

Rob

KDE & Gnome Usability Engineers Agree on 'Unity' (OSNews)

Posted Mar 11, 2003 13:56 UTC (Tue) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link]

Have you ever read Havoc's comments on usability and configuration options?
If so you'd already have most of the answer to your question.

KDE & Gnome Usability Engineers Agree on 'Unity' (OSNews)

Posted Mar 12, 2003 16:29 UTC (Wed) by RobDavies (guest, #9930) [Link]

Yes I have read them, hence my comments about Havoc. Dumbing down is not
the way to go, yes some consistent base level options are good, but hence
the idea for meta-config, user levels.

A support engineer could ideally request to push the current options onto
a stack, test to see if the problem exists with Standard Defaults for a
support call telephone walk through, then when cleared up, the user can
pop them back off and get back to work.

KDE & Gnome Usability Engineers Agree on 'Unity' (OSNews)

Posted Mar 11, 2003 18:23 UTC (Tue) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

I think the Debian Desktop project has the right idea about this:

We recognize that there are only two important classes of users: the novice, and the expert. We will do everything we can to make things very easy for the novice, while allowing the expert to tweak things if they like.

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-desktop/

"Teaking things as they like" leads to a long integration testing process, but perhaps there is a common set of UI options that are preferred by people that are in the "expert class" that could be put in a meta group as you suggest.

I've found that there's little hope in achieving consensus on what constitutes the "perfect" UI, so I changed tactics: I'm now trying to identify things that most expert users hate instead. :-)