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Free software scares normal people

danieldelaney.net

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Re: Free software scares normal people

#91

Post by lutusp »

I like this idea -- a simple interface/frontend for an otherwise complicated topic, for the less skilled among us. It has intriguing possibilities beyond technology ...

Q: Why does God allow so much suffering?

A: What? There is no God. We invented him.

Q: Doesn't this mean life has no purpose?

A: Create your own purpose. Eliminate the middleman.

Q: But doesn't atheism allow evil people free rein?

A: No, it's religion that does that. A religious evil person can always claim God either granted him permission or forgave him after the fact. And he won't be contradicted by God, since ... but we already covered that.

Hmm. If it works for HandBrake, it might work for life.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#92

Post by lateforwork »

You don't need two different versions of the software, one that is easy and one that is powerful. You can have one version that is both easy and powerful. Key concepts here are (1) progressive disclosure and (2) constraints.

See Don Norman's Design of Everyday things.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/progressive-disclosure/

https://www.nngroup.com/videos/positive-constraints-in-ux-wo...

Re: Free software scares normal people

#94

Post by fellowniusmonk »

jraph wrote: post #62
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ffmpeg with disposable or llm backed dnd interfaces. for certain types of tooling UIs should be cheap, disposable and task/worlflow specific.

The last thing we want for a user-friendly interface is nondeterminism. Some procedure that works today must work tomorrow if it looks like you can repeat it. LLMs can't be the answer to this. And if you go to the lengths of making the llm deterministic, with tests and all, you might as well code the thing once and for all and not ship the local llm to the end user at all.

Sorry, I see how my post lacked sufficient clarity.

The idea behind a cheap UI is not constant change, but that you have a shared engine and "app" per activity.

The particular workflow/ui doesn't need to ever change, it's more of a app/brand per activity for non-power users.

This is similar to how some apps historically (very roughly lotus notes springs to mind) are a single app but have an email interface/icon to click, or contacts, or calendar, all one underlying app but different ui entry points.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#95

Post by cosmic_cheese »

squeedles wrote: post #10

Good 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…

It's my belief that much of this flavor of UI/UX degradation can be avoided by employing a simple but criminally underutilized idea in the software world (FOSS portion included), which is feature freezing.

That is, either determine what the optimal set of features is from the outset, design around that, and freeze or organically reach the optimium and then freeze. After implementing the target feature set, nearly all engineering resources are dedicated to bug fixes and efficiency improvements. New features can be added only after passing through a rigorous gauntlet of reviews that determine if the value of the feature's addition is worth the inherent disruption and impact to stability and resource consumption, and if so, approaching its integration into the existing UI with a holistic approach (as opposed to the usual careless bolt-on approach).

Naturally, there are some types of software where requirements are too fast-moving for this to be practical, but I would hazard a guess that it would work for the overwhelming majority of use cases which have been solved problems for a decade or more and the required level of flux is in reality extremely low.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#96

Post by keyringlight »

ambicapter wrote: post #63
WD-42 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Much larger but not non-existent, people post their work (including laborious stuff like icon suites and themes) on art forums and websites for no gain all the time.

Going back to the winxp days there was a fairly vibrant group of people making unofficial themes for it, although I think that was helped by the existence of tools (from Stardock?) specialized on that task and making it approachable if your skill set didn't align perfectly.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#97

Post by soraminazuki »

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”.

If you only care about converting media without tweaking anything, ffmpeg offers the simplest UI ever.

    ffmpeg -i input.avi output.mp4

Re: Free software scares normal people

#98

Post by gspencley »

A lot of this type of stuff boils down to what you're used to.

My wife is not particularly tech savvy. She is a Linux user, however. When we started a new business, we needed certain applications that only run on Windows and since she would be at the brick and mortar location full time, I figured we could multi-purpose a new laptop for her and have her switch to Windows.

She hated it and begged for us to get a dedicated Windows laptop for that stuff so she could go back to Linux.

Some of you might suggest that she has me for tech support, which is true, but I can't actually remember the last time she asked me to troubleshoot something for her with her laptop. The occasions that do come to mind are usually hardware failure related.

Obviously the thing about generlizations is that they're never going to fit all individuals uniformly. My wife might be an edge case. But she feels at home using Linux, as it's what she's used to ... and strongly loathed using Windows when it was offered to her.

I feel that kind of way about Mac vs PC as well. I am a lifelong PC user, and also a "power user." I have extremely particular preferences when it comes to my UI and keyboard mappings and fonts and windowing features. When I was forced to use a Mac for work, I honestly considered looking for a different position because it was just that painful for me. Nothing wrong with Mac OS X, a lot of people love it. But I was 10% as productive on it when compared to what I'm used to... and I'm "old dog" enough that it was just too much change to be able to bear and work with.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#99

Post by chasing0entropy »

I feel like the author wants everything to be Apple simplified. That all users should dumb down to on off go and stop. Ask chat got for anything else. I disagree for so many obvious reasons it's pointless to iterate them. We as a society need to get MORE capable, more critical, and improve our cognitive abilities; not the opposite.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#100

Post by BeetleB »

> I’m the person my friends and family come to for computer-related help. (Maybe you, gentle reader, can relate.)

I proactively stopped that decades ago.

"Oh, you use Windows? Sorry, I haven't used it in over a decade so I can't help. If you have any Linux questions, let me know!"

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