Where is the Linux Desktop's Aim?
By a very definition, it seems that working for the Linux desktop is like shooting darts in the dark. Obviously, one would not be able to see where the dart goes, neither if you are hitting the target. However you are definitively hitting something, but you do not seem to know what.
In comparison, the Linux desktop aiming at the end user seems to fall under this category. The bigger question will always be, who are we trying to satisfy through our Linux product? Given the vastness of reach that Linux has on thousands of coders, the Linux desktop project is bound to receive a great array of views, ideas and currents of thought that will lead the Linux desktop from one place to the other. Believing that coming together in order to work on a particular project is hard for me. However, projects such as KDE 4 have shown great strength in coming together and creating something revolutionary and beautiful. Other efforts to make the Linux desktop a reality have also come together in order to create similar results to what KDE did. Gnome has followed in the footsteps of KDE and has also gathered its community-enthusiasts and created the new Gnome 3 iteration.
However, the Linux desktop is still immature--I do not say this with malice--in the sense that projects that aim towards a goal seem to center their understanding of what the Linux desktop is in a less opened environment to which they could gather to and understand what it is that simple, non-tech s
savy people understand about the way we have made their graphical environments. I am referring to what the voice of users has to say about the way THEY use their computers as opposed to what we Linux Desktop thinkers believe is good for them.
For example, if I am not mistaken, KDE 4 was an aim that grew deep in the KDE community overtime, believing that their product KDE 3 was outdated and needed to be revamped. All over the internet there were calls for change and some even ventured to creating new ideas about the way KDE 4 was going to be. I remember seeing new icons at the Oxygen Icons website which promised to deliver a new way of interaction with the desktop through their plasma desktop. I was dazzled by the beautiful icons created in order to show the newness of approach that KDE 4 was going to take. It took icons to make people excited over the project.
Gnome followed a similar path. Seeing that KDE 4 has so drastically changed the aspect of its default desktop, it decided to launch their newest major revision, Gnome 3. Their approach came from often-unloved Gnome Shell. Brainstormers created a new way to interact with the desktop based on a combination of very active desktops and windows as well as an ease of access to files and applications.
While all this speaks to the minds of users that projects such as Gnome and KDE did their best in adapting to changing times, the old problem also became apparent. The community effort derived into personal effort, which in turn made it seem as if these projects were put on the shoulders of the few who could make ideas come true through their code as opposed to asking the people, like the rest of us, what WE think of their creation. I am a document developer, and I do not appreciate it when people tell me that my earnest efforts do not fit their life. I become unhappy and probably bitter since all my work was worth nothing in the eyes of users. But alas, this is something that happens in man development teams. It is part of the process to let a rough stone roll down the hill until it becomes smooth. However, efforts coming from KDE and Gnome, although being amazingly written do not seem to tackle non-tech users as well as it does for them, why? because the rest of us are unable to code but they are. We do not have a voice because no one asks us what we think.
Did KDE 4 and Gnome 3 ever conducted surveys to people in order to understand their interaction with computers? Do these two projects ever reach out to the community (non Linux users) in order to find out their needs? If they did, it was little. I hereby advocate a stronger case for the unheard, for the ones who will be placed these great tools in our hands. To these two amazing projects I say, be great listeners, seek out opportunities to understand the rest of us. Do not be like the people in this video giving out a Christmas present that only fits some.
Let's shoot our darts with the lights on. :D
Best wishes, Andy
In comparison, the Linux desktop aiming at the end user seems to fall under this category. The bigger question will always be, who are we trying to satisfy through our Linux product? Given the vastness of reach that Linux has on thousands of coders, the Linux desktop project is bound to receive a great array of views, ideas and currents of thought that will lead the Linux desktop from one place to the other. Believing that coming together in order to work on a particular project is hard for me. However, projects such as KDE 4 have shown great strength in coming together and creating something revolutionary and beautiful. Other efforts to make the Linux desktop a reality have also come together in order to create similar results to what KDE did. Gnome has followed in the footsteps of KDE and has also gathered its community-enthusiasts and created the new Gnome 3 iteration.
However, the Linux desktop is still immature--I do not say this with malice--in the sense that projects that aim towards a goal seem to center their understanding of what the Linux desktop is in a less opened environment to which they could gather to and understand what it is that simple, non-tech s
savy people understand about the way we have made their graphical environments. I am referring to what the voice of users has to say about the way THEY use their computers as opposed to what we Linux Desktop thinkers believe is good for them.
For example, if I am not mistaken, KDE 4 was an aim that grew deep in the KDE community overtime, believing that their product KDE 3 was outdated and needed to be revamped. All over the internet there were calls for change and some even ventured to creating new ideas about the way KDE 4 was going to be. I remember seeing new icons at the Oxygen Icons website which promised to deliver a new way of interaction with the desktop through their plasma desktop. I was dazzled by the beautiful icons created in order to show the newness of approach that KDE 4 was going to take. It took icons to make people excited over the project.
Gnome followed a similar path. Seeing that KDE 4 has so drastically changed the aspect of its default desktop, it decided to launch their newest major revision, Gnome 3. Their approach came from often-unloved Gnome Shell. Brainstormers created a new way to interact with the desktop based on a combination of very active desktops and windows as well as an ease of access to files and applications.
While all this speaks to the minds of users that projects such as Gnome and KDE did their best in adapting to changing times, the old problem also became apparent. The community effort derived into personal effort, which in turn made it seem as if these projects were put on the shoulders of the few who could make ideas come true through their code as opposed to asking the people, like the rest of us, what WE think of their creation. I am a document developer, and I do not appreciate it when people tell me that my earnest efforts do not fit their life. I become unhappy and probably bitter since all my work was worth nothing in the eyes of users. But alas, this is something that happens in man development teams. It is part of the process to let a rough stone roll down the hill until it becomes smooth. However, efforts coming from KDE and Gnome, although being amazingly written do not seem to tackle non-tech users as well as it does for them, why? because the rest of us are unable to code but they are. We do not have a voice because no one asks us what we think.
Did KDE 4 and Gnome 3 ever conducted surveys to people in order to understand their interaction with computers? Do these two projects ever reach out to the community (non Linux users) in order to find out their needs? If they did, it was little. I hereby advocate a stronger case for the unheard, for the ones who will be placed these great tools in our hands. To these two amazing projects I say, be great listeners, seek out opportunities to understand the rest of us. Do not be like the people in this video giving out a Christmas present that only fits some.
Let's shoot our darts with the lights on. :D
Best wishes, Andy
Written by Anditosan
12 comments:
Did Apple ask users what they wanted before they designed the iPod?
I hardly believe so. Much more likely, they had a vision, some usability experts, and a design team.
Point is, before Apple designs their products, people don't know that they want them. The same goes for operating systems. Ask people what they want, and they will want what they know.
That way, we wouldn't have gotten out of the stone-age.
Addendum: Actual progress happens by competing designs - you put out new ideas, the good ones hopefully survive and evolve. Drive-ins survived, slot-machine restaurants didn't.
The evolution of ideas happens in a similar way then, only on a much smaller scale.
From what I can tell iPod people did do some research and shopping around to create the iPod. http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/origin-of-the-ipod.html#0
Rather than just taking a wild guess as to how much user research and how many usability studies they did, maybe you could actually ask. I know KDE has an entire mailing list dedicated to usability. Did you ask them how much research they did before telling them it wasn't enough?
You are doing the same thing you accuse the KDE developers of doing, thinking that your opinion is everyone's, thinking your experience is everyone's. Your entire article is written from the perspective that you speak for all non-tech users. You never make any attempt to distinguish between your own opinions and the opinions of all users everywhere.
Have you done a random survey of non-tech users to determine what their actual opinion of KDE 4 or Gnome 3 are? On what grounds do you claim it doesn't appeal to them, other than the fact that it doesn't appeal to you and some other vocal commenters?
How user friendly and effective survey taker is a KDE mailing list? I doubt it reaches the rest of us. There are different methods to be used.
When I speak in "we" I basically base myself on experiences that other people have had to whom I have talked to about the subject. Personal experience is what motivates my writing most of the times.
I'm afraid I agree that you weren't very thorough in your research of usability studies, the GNOME project has done dozens of studies, the most comprehensive of which is detailed at http://better desktop.org.
Yes, it's a while ago, but I was there at Novell selling the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop during this time, and imcanattest to the hard work and user experience studies that went on.
I had completely forgotten about Better Desktop. I do remember going into it a couple of times. My question to you would be, do you believe Better Desktop took the data into account in away that it reflected that people wanted something like Gnome 3?
so we've been working (slower than i'd like :) on activities in Plasma (and now other apps too, which is good to see).
guess where the idea for activities came from?
shoulder surfing in offices of people who use their computers for content creation and studying how they use their systems.
i've done other studies in the past as well; one included tracking the usage of toolbar buttons for a week of 10 office workers.
are enough of us doing this? i don't know; probably not (are there ever enough?)
but KDE has had a good number of people who have done usability tests, including in full-on lab situations. actual usability professionals, no less. we also have people like Aurelien who apply many "best practices" approaches that are already well established, while listening quite closely to the needs of his real world users of apps such as gwenview.
i fear you've fallen into the same cynical trap of many people in the f/oss enthusiast crowd: the fad of accusing developers of being insular and uncaring. yes it's popular to say, but it's also pretty false.
the biggest turn off for me when it comes to feedback from some people in our community is how poorly informed it is. ironic, no? :)
I for one am finding less and less to like about the new desktops being offered. The older I get the less I need all the bells and whistles. I also hate learning new ways of doing things that I already know how to do. I am glad that some get more use out of this but I hate some thing that will always take resources just to do simple task. I want some thing that will use as few resources as possible and that is no longer KDE.
The anonymous user at 4.34 AM nailed it down. Talented developers are entitled to a vision too, and KDE devs did exactly that. They had the balls to come up with revolutionary ideas about a whole new desktop paradigm, they implemented these ideas, they were bashed at first, they stayed focused on their vision, and now, even though every sensible and objective person admits that KDE is placed some centuries ahead of every other desktop, people still complain about...what? Usability?
Cmon people, KDE is actually the only DE that one can use even if they have no idea about how to use it. You just press Alt+F2 and type whatever you want to do. Also, KDE can be as cluttered or uncluttered you like. When I switched to KDE (at 4.1 I think), I couldn't believe it that I could actually work without placing application shortcuts all over the place and still keep track of every little bit in my system. Actually, I didn't even need a conventional "desktop" to work efficiently. This is sth I definitely wouldn't have thought, so I guess it would have been impossible to suggest it as an idea :).
Also, the usual pattern starts to appear in the comments: People complaining about resources. Although I do respect their concerns, unfortunately they can't do much to answer the question of you post: "Where is the Linux Desktop's Aim?". You see, you can't move forward when your needs or habits are holding you back. Besides, we wouldn't have stepped on the moon if we insisted that the car is all we need to travel. On the other hand, spaceships are more expensive to build and fly, that's for sure :).
As the anonymous user @ 4.34 said, without the creativity and vision of some experts, we would still live in the stone-age.
And the funny thing is that KDE devs actually do listen to their users, more carefully than most people think. But one has to actually use KDE, not just test it for a few hours, in order to see that.
That is my point. You can always survey more and more professionally. Random assortment of people, using margin or error calculations, etc. All those things that pertain to proper surveying.
I totally agree with the article and I think its insights are sorely needed if Linux is *ever* to win significant marketshare on the desktop from MS Windows.
Speaking as an end-user, what I want is simply a desktop that can replace MS Windows and runs under Linux. In order to replace MS Windows, it needs to "just work" (no commandline nonsense, fully automatic setup, configurable through menus, a convenient way to launch any application I have installed (KDE, Gnome, GTk, Firefox, commandline, whatever) and above all: *everything* that ships as part of KDE should *work* too, and right out of the box.
In other words: no excuses for crashing apps, and a clear way to use the latest KDE "production" release without experiencing lots of crashes under *any* Linux distribution that will accept the installation packages.
That's all I ask, but it's quite hard (not to mention boring) to deliver. And more to the point: it's not something KDE wishes to provide.
KDE's interest isn't in serving end-users, it's creating an interesting and advanced desktop. Even if that means chronic instability and reams of bugs.
That's their right of course. It's their work, and I'm not paying them for anything. But it does mean that KDE adoption is much slower than it could have been because I'm not going to waste any of my time arguing with developers who want to do their own thing. I'll just wait until it does what I want, or I won't use it at all.
And I'm afraid that it's people like me (the vast majority of computer users, and especially MS Windows users, which amounts to the same thing really) who halt or slow Linux penetration on the desktop for the reasons just mentioned.
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