[mythtv-users] Why Free Software has poor usability ?
Jay R. Ashworth
jra at baylink.com
Wed Aug 6 15:29:17 UTC 2008
On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 10:50:33AM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> Or, if someone else does something to improve things, please stop
> b****ing if your "Recording brightness for shows from channels whose
> name ends with '-dark'" option gets removed from Myth. Instead, figure
> out how it's /supposed/ to work and do things right. (Yeah, that's a
> made-up option so I don't bruise anyone's fragile ego by calling out any
> (more) of the real useless settings.) Usability doesn't mean you never
> have to learn and adapt to changes--take a look at MS Office 2007 if you
> don't believe me... :)
To be fair: the problem on that sort of thing isn't the options
themselves... it stems from failures on two other point:
Progressive Complexity (hiding knobs until users need them)
and
Getting the Defaults Right (if you pick the right default setting, most
users don't need to know the knob's there).
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
Those who count the vote decide everything.
-- (Josef Stalin)
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