> claude --dangerously-skip-permissions -p "convert happy.blarf to a small mp4 file that will work on my ipad and send it to my email"
Free software scares normal people
41–50 of 641 posts
Re: Free software scares normal people
#42Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…
Overall, the development world does not intuitively understand the difficulty of creating good interfaces (for people that aren’t developers.) In dev work, the complexity is obvious, and that makes it easy for outsiders to understand— they look at the code we’re writing and say “wow you can read that?!” I think that can give developers a mistaken impression that other peoples work is far less complex than it is. With…
It’s also about keeping things simple, hierarchical, and very predictable. These do not go hand in hand with the feature creep of collaborative FOSS projects, as others point out here.
Re: Free software scares normal people
#43If handbrake scares them, don’t you dare to demonstrate how to use ffmpeg. I remember when I used handbrake for the first time and thought “wow, it’s much more convenient than struggling with ffmpeg”.
imo LLMs make all of these UIs unnecessary, i'm happy to use ffmpeg now
Re: Free software scares normal people
#44Makes a good point, but the headline bothers me. It isn't the free that is the problem, it is the complexity.
Yep, the Adobe tools and basically all professionally-used CAD software are incredibly intimidating to 'normal people', and they ain't free.
Re: Free software scares normal people
#45The problem is that everyone wants a different 20% of the functionality. Actual good UI/UX design isn't trivial and it tends to require a tight feedback loop between testers, designers, implementers, and users. A lot of FOSS simply doesn't have the resources to do that.
> tends to require a tight feedback loop between testers, designers, implementers, and users
Some FOSS projects attempt something like this, but it can become a self-reinforcing feedback loop: When you're only testing on current users, you're selecting for people who already use the software. People who already use the software were not scared away by the interface. So the current users tend to prefer the current interface.
Big software companies have the resources to gather (and pay) people for user studies to see what works and what does not for people who haven't seen the software before, or at least don't have any allegiances. If you only ever get feedback from people who have been using the software for a decade, they're going to tell you the UI must not change because they know exactly how to use it by now.
Re: Free software scares normal people
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Handbrake's UI is in the uncanny valley for me -- too complicated for use by laymen, and way too limiting for use by people who know what they're doing...
ffmpeg with disposable or llm backed dnd interfaces. for certain types of tooling UIs should be cheap, disposable and task/worlflow specific.
Actually I think this is a killer use case for local LLMs. We could finally get back to asking the computer to do something without having to learn how to string 14 different commands together to do it.
Re: Free software scares normal people
#47Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…
Good points, but to add to the sources of instability ... a first time user of a piece of software may be very appreciative of its simplicity and "intuitiveness". However, if it is a tool that they spend a lot of time with and is connected to a potentially complex workflow, it won't be long before even they are asking for "this little extra thing".
It is hard to overestimate the difference between creating tools for people who use the tools for hours every day and creating tools for people who use tools once a week or less.
Re: Free software scares normal people
#48Meanwhile, every time Gnome makes UI adjustments along these lines, there's an outcry that it's dumbed downed, copying apple, removing features etc etc.
Yeah, and that's because the article's advice is bad.
It works exactly for TV remote controls. Or, rather, it worked before everybody had an HDMI player or smart TVs. It doesn't work for TV remotes now either.
Handbrake is a bit like TV remotes in the turn of the century. That's an exception even among free software, and absolutely no mainstream DE is like that.
Re: Free software scares normal people
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/20 use case for normal/majority or users or would risk hurting their workflow to make it easier for others
> contributors of free software tend to be power users or, simply put, nerds it takes both a different background, approach and skillset to design ux and interface if anything FOSS should figure out how to attract skilled artists so majority of designs and logos doesn't look so blatantly amateurish.
I'm optimistic that the rise of vibe coding will allow the people who understand the user's wants and needs to fix the world's FOSS UIs.
Re: Free software scares normal people
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/20 use case for normal/majority or users or would risk hurting their workflow to make it easier for others
> contributors of free software tend to be power users or, simply put, nerds it takes both a different background, approach and skillset to design ux and interface if anything FOSS should figure out how to attract skilled artists so majority of designs and logos doesn't look so blatantly amateurish.
My guess is that, as has always been, the pool of people willing to code for free on their own time because it's fun is just much larger than the people willing to make icons for software projects on their own time because they think it's fun.