User interface and usability

[Teemu Likonen]

Adrian Wilkins wrote (2008-09-11 08:56 +0100):

> My point was broadly that if an operation requires you to think hard
> or refer to the manual before you do it, you've just added a large
> amount of latency. The software may do the job fast, but the total
> time taken for the operation now includes a chunk of head-scratching
> ; it doesn't matter how fast it is _after_ you push enter if it takes
> you longer to get there.

Some valid points there but I think they're not to be generalized too 
much. OK, maybe you are not generalizing, just talking about your 
experience about VCS tools. Anyway, I'm currently thinking about the 
idea of a very powerful tool with lots of features and highly optimized 
for so called power users. Sometimes such tool can be difficult to learn 
but it may pay the time back, so to say. It may be impossible to make 
such tool easy to use for everyone and still be fast and powerful, at 
least without having several different UI layers (e.g., beginner, 
intermediate, advanced). Also, if the target audience are advanced 
users, why bother? There are no single meter of usability.

I started using Vim text editor about four or five years ago. I followed 
vimtutor, often browsed manuals and sometimes used other editors for 
tasks that I wasn't able to do easily with Vim. Huge "latency". But at 
some point it just happened that I did everything faster with Vim and 
was more comfortable with it than with any other text editor. It allows 
me to do things that I wouldn't want to even try with other editors. 
I do almost all my text editing with Vim and I'm so familiar with it 
that I can and have added some new features with Vim's scripting 
language. I'm sure that many people consider Vim very hard to learn. 
Nevertheless it's very powerful and fast. I'm glad it's not trying to be 
everyone's easy-to-use editor like Notepad or KWrite or something.

Is this editor analogy valid for VCS tools? Well, to certain extend, 
maybe. I'm not saying that I could name the Vim or Emacs or Notepad of 
VCS tools. No. I'm just saying that sometimes people find it beneficial 
to learn to use a tool which seems different or difficult at first but 
is proven to be powerful.

> It's a shame that OSS projects have not yet come up with a way of
> doing usability studies more scientifically than gathering opinion on
> lists.

Such studies can be useful, no doubt. In this message's context I wonder 
what would they say about Vim or Emacs. With both of them a new user is 
very much helpless without manuals. Both require practicing, practicing 
and practicing. They haven't proven themselves in studies but in the 
practice.