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Free software scares normal people

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Re: Free software scares normal people

#51

Post by longnguyen »

This has been a major UX problem for me when building my app [0] (an AI chat client for power user).

On the one hand, I want the UI to be simple and minimal enough so even non savvy users can use it.

But on the other hand, I do need to support more advanced features, with more configuration panels.

I learned that the solution in this case is “progressive disclosure”. By default, the app only show just enough UI elements to get the 90% cases done. For the advanced use cases, it takes more effort. Usually to enable them in Settings, or an Inspector pane etc. Power users can easily tinker around and tweak them. While non savvy users can stick with the default, usual UX flow.

Though even with this technique, choosing what to show by default is still not easy. I learned that I need to be clear about my Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and optimize for that profile only.

[0]: https://boltai.com

Re: Free software scares normal people

#52

Post by ang_cire »

waffletower wrote: post #34

Would be nice for an inverse article -- which is often harder to achieve -- case in point: I wish iCloud had a power user interface.

Oh, it has one, it's just not available to you.

FOSS's issue isn't that they trust users too much, it's that they aren't taking different types of users into account.

Corporate-built software that's locked down or limited like iCloud is 100% about not trusting the users.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#53

Post by MarkusWandel »

andreldm wrote: post #11

If 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”.

At least with ffmpeg, for 99% of use cases you can just google "how do I do X with ffmpeg" and get a copypasta command line.

Whereas with complicated GUI tools, you have to watch a video to learn how to do it.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#54

Post by jfengel »

As a UX guy, I'd like to note that the normal people aren't so great at knowing what they want, either.

I dread "Can you add a button..." Or worse, "Can you add a check box..." Not only does that make it worse for other users, it also makes it worse for you, even if you don't realize it yet.

What you need is to take their use case and imagine other ways to get there. Often that means completely turning their idea on its head. It can even help if you're not in the trenches with them, and can look at the bigger picture rather than the thing that is interfering with their current work flow.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#55

Post by ferguess_k »

Although I wish Linux were easier to use -- and there are distros that aim for this, I do agree that FOSS is mostly by nerds for nerds, but it doesn't prevent other people making changes -- which is exactly what the author did.

So I'd like to welcome the author to make more apps based on FOSS.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#56

Post by kccqzy »

I think there is something deeper here: people have become scared of the unknown, therefore we need to hide things for them. But people don't have to be scared. In fact even for people who are using Handbrake comfortably, a lot of things Handbrake presents in its UI are probably unknown to them and can safely be ignored. The screenshot in the article shows that Handbrake analyzed the source video and reported it as 30 FPS, SDR, 8-bit 4:2:0, 1-1-1. I think less than a tenth of a percent of Handbrake users understand all of that. 30 FPS is reasonably understandable but 4:2:0 requires the user to understand chroma subsampling, a considerably more niche topic. And I have no idea what 1-1-1 is and I simply ignore it. My point is, when faced with unknown information and controls, why do people feel scared in the first place? Why can't they simply ignore the unknown and make sense of what they can understand? Is it because they worry that the part of the software they don't understand will damage their computer or delete all their files? Is it just the lack of computer literacy?

I do not readily empathize with people who are scared of software, because my generation grows up tinkering with software. I'd like to understand why people would become scared of software in the first place.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#57

Post by pessimizer »

Couldn't agree with this more. I'm even an advocate for simulating walled gardens with Free Software. Let people who need to feel swaddled in a product or a brand feel swaddled.

It also opens up opportunities for money-making, and employment in Free Software for people who do not program. The kind of hand-holding that some people prefer or need in UX is not easy to design, and the kind of marketing that leads people to the product is really the beginning of that process.

Nobody normal cares that it's a thin layer over the top of a bunch of copyleft that they wouldn't understand anyway (plenty of commercial software is a thin layer over permissively licensed stuff.) Most people I know barely know what files and directories are, and the idea of trying to learn fills them with an anxiety akin to math-phobia. Some (most?) people get a lot of anxiety about being called stupid, and they avoid the things that caused it to happen.

They do want privacy and the ownership of their own devices as much as everyone else however, they just don't know how much they're giving up when they do a particular software thing, or (like all of us) know that it is seriously difficult if not possible to avoid the danger.

Give people mock EULAs to click through, but they will enumerate the software's obligations to them, not their obligations to the software. Help them remain as ignorant as they want about how everything works, other than emphasizing the assurances that the GPL gives them.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#58

Post by nicce »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #53
andreldm wrote: post #11

If 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”.

At least with ffmpeg, for 99% of use cases you can just google "how do I do X with ffmpeg" and get a copypasta command line. Whereas with complicated GUI tools, you have to watch a video to learn how to do it.

One of the things LLM shines. For double checking the command explanations, I ask commands to grep the sections from manual instead of relying LLM output blindly.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#59

Post by matheusmoreira »

mikkupikku wrote: post #36

"I am new to GitHub and I have lots to say I DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE FUCKING CODE! i just want to download this stupid fucking application and use it. WHY IS THERE CODE??? MAKE A FUCKING .EXE FILE AND GIVE IT TO ME. these dumbfucks think that everyone is a developer and understands code. well i am not and i don't understand it. I only know to download and install applications. SO WHY THE FUCK IS THERE CODE? make a…

Wow, it's actually real.

https://old.reddit.com/r/github/comments/1at9br4/i_am_new_to...

https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock/issues/2011

Re: Free software scares normal people

#60

Post by [deleted] »

doug_durham wrote: post #5
jasonthorsness wrote: post #4

Some reasons for this: 1. Free software is developed for the developer's own needs and developers are going to be power users. 2. The cost to expose options is low so from the developer's perspective it's low effort to add high value (perceiving the options as valuable). 3. The developer doesn't know who the customer is and rather than research/refine just tries to hit all the boxes. 4. The distribution of the softwa…

It takes a lot of time and energy to refine and maintain a minimalistic interface. You are intentionally narrowing the audience. If you are an open source developer with limited time you probably aren't going to invest in that.

[deleted]
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