Last week, Sun (NASDAQ:SUNW)
released the results of its GNOME usability study. Michael Hall
says the Linux community couldn't have asked for a nicer present
than one that helps talented hackers understand an area where their
coding skill does them little good: the over-cited,
seldom-understood world of usability. Plus: a second look at tech
support, with the one document every Linux advocate should keep
taped to the wall when it comes time to help those hopeless
newbies.
"Usability," like the word "design," found voguish
status among vaguely mod information age sages. Everyone knows, for
instance, that things should be "usable," and it's a sign of deep
knowing to make remarks about the usability or unusability of a
given thing; it's also a sign of knowing to talk about "good
design" or "bad design." In either case, sometimes what you ought
to be hearing is "I didn't like it," or "I did like it," or "I
think this sucks but can't tell you why."
Some people spend a lot of time thinking about usability, and
they've developed robust methodologies and bodies of work around
figuring out what helps people do useful things with the tools in
their lives. Many, many more people aren't quite so sure what makes
something usable as they are that they want more things to be that
way, whatever it may mean.
The danger of an over-used concept is that it becomes trite and
worn out, its meaning lost in the obfuscatory wilderness of knowing
party banter and guru-for-a-day proclamations. Some people I've
spoken to, for instance, use the word "unusable" in everyday
assessments of fairly routine things, and not as a wry way to
describe a shopping cart with a straying wheel. They like it
because it's a shinier way to say "this thing sucks" or "I didn't
know you had to push down before turning." Others use the word
"usable" to mean "dumbed down" or "simplistic," and base their
understanding of usability on some vague notion of what works well
with stupid people.
Although there are many, many talented people at work on
building the better desktop, entrusting them with characterizing
what makes a piece of software "usable" or not is a bad idea. Not
because they're flawed or less than talented, but because they live
with the software they're creating day in and day out. Anyone who's
been around GNOME for a while has probably become used to its idiom
on a level that's blinding when it comes to anticipating what less
proficient and capable users need to succesfully navigate an
interface. It never occured to me, for instance, that anyone would
have a beef with "moon and stars" icon meaning "exit the desktop."
At least not until I remembered that I'd once passed the mouse over
it tentatively the first time I encountered it to make sure it did
what I thought. That isn't to say that there haven't been some nice
touches added. Ximian has made GNOME a better (more usable)
experience for a lot of people, for instance. But there are a few
more yards to go in this push."
