Mena-Quintero: A Friday rant on Gnome 3, journalists, and power users

Right now I use XFCE as it is the least painful to use. Terminal starts quickly (yeah I need my terminal when I hit the key combo I set up, not several seconds later, I am an impatient person, and computers are fast enough nowdays aren't they?), it has a simple app menu for launching apps where I can always easily find what I am looking for, and I can set certain apps onto a panel for a quick launch.

In XFCE there is "MIME Type Editor" which lets you set default apps. It's a bit too simple, and could use some improvements, but it's far easier to use than the GNOME way. That's the correct way to do it. That's the correct metaphor. It's not right to do it in the application. That's backwards. Though it wouldn't hurt if you could set it from the application as well.

Don't overthink it. Overthinking is exactly what got current GNOME UI designers into trouble. Don't make too many abstractions. Abstractions are bad unless they work perfectly. Then you precisely get into trouble when users are not working in the way that you envisioned they should. They get frustrated and complain loudly.

There is a lovely book "The Design of Everyday Things" that is an excellent critique of interface of ... well "everyday things". I got the book from some usability people when working on GNOME. UI designers are still not taking the advice there to heart, and they should.

Now ... get off my lawn!