Free software scares normal people

See this is the thing that software devs don't "get" about UI design.

It's the exact thing the original author is trying to communicate.

You CAN have a powerful tool. And still have it be user friendly for normies!

You hide away it's complexities. So it's not INDTIMIDATING for new users.

You know what. I'm going to reinstall gimp. Just to prove my point.

Let's compare photoshop with gimp.

Before I begin, let me preface. Modern photoshop is an enshitified piece of garbage. I would never use it.

But this is nothing to do with enshitification. That's a whole different thing.

Ok let's start:

- I grab a random image from imgur. Copy paste. Ctrl-V. Both apps passed the test. I was a little worried gimp couldn't even do this.

- On load this is what photoshop looks like: https://imgur.com/a/3uYsm2h

- On load this is what gimp looks like: https://imgur.com/a/DnPcRTc

First impressions:

- GIMP is ugly as fuck. It looks outdated. There's information overload on the left side. Too much shit happening. Too much text squashed together. INTIMIDATING.

- In contrast, photoshop has a more minimalist look. There is a "Layers" window on the right. New users don't need to touch it.

- There is a "Size & Position" window. This is key. Notice how there's only 3 things inside that window. Notice how it's not squashed with all the other shit on the left. Think about that. Why did the designer do this? Because those 3 things are what 90% of normies are looking to do.

- This is exactly what the original author was talking about, with the TV remote. The most common operations should be sectioned off at the top of the remote. Similarly, the most common operations in photo editing should be sectioned off, in clear view.

Ok, Step 2. Let's try and crop this image. A common operation:

- Photoshop. Click the crop button. Shows you a bit more complexity in it's settings. You don't have to touch it. It gives you a helpful grid UI: https://imgur.com/a/tLjL6en

- And then it has a blue "Done" button at the bottom. Finished easy.

- GIMP. We start with a brush by default??? Whoops I accidentally drew on the picture. I didn't want to do that. Thank god I know ctrl-Z.

- So it's that cross thing right? That's the move button. Nope that's not what I want to do :(

- It must be the one next to it. The rectangle. Ok, some random corner thingies appear in the corners. I click on one of the corners. The image gets split into two. But now what? WTF do I do now: https://imgur.com/a/f7TTHJs

I can go on and on and on and on, criticizing gimp's terrible UI design. I hope, the little I have demonstrated, is a tease into what UI design is really about.

We should not be thinking about architecture at the business process level. This is just repeating the mistake that needs to be avoided here. This is, and will ever be, a pile of ad-hoc hacks. They're not meant to add up to a well-designed system in a bottom-up fashion, because there is no system to design. The structure we naturally seek, is constantly in flux.

The right architectural/design decisions to make here is to make it possible to assemble quick hacks out of robust parts that fulfill additional needs the people on the ground may not consider - logs/audit trail/telemetry, consistency for ergonomic reasons, error handling, efficient compute usage, tracking provenance, information access restrictions dictated by legal obligations, etc.

The most important change needed is in the mindset. Internal dev needs to stop thinking of itself as the most important part of the company, or as a well-defined team that should own products. To be useful, the opposite is needed - such devs need to basically become ChatGPT that works: always be there to rapidly respond to requests to tweak some software by people on the ground, and then to retweak is as needed. They need to do this work rapidly, without judgement, and never assume they know better.

Only then people will stop weaving ad-hoc Excel sheets into business-critical processes.

At some point in our industry, "service providers" started thinking of themselves as kings, instead of what they were supposed to be - servants.

Software development delivers products, internal products and solutions that should be leveraged by business to improve rate of growth.

If you have software development department chucked into IT and make them be supporters that run in the background you are wasting potential or wasting money on their salaries.

If you want supporters make it IT only and pay for SaaS solutions that everyone is using.

My buddy has almost the exact same story about his M1 iMac. Just under 4 years, now it crashes and forces a safe mode boot randomly. The computer can take upwards of 10 minutes to even start up. They gave him the same business, exact same repair offering, and he’s moving on like I am. I’ve got 1 other friend with a similar unfolding right now, none of these situations were with laptops.