KDE Usability person

[Joel Leininger]

Actually, since 1995-1996 Microsoft has moved from Win95 to Vista, not
from DOS to Vista. DOS hit the streets in its earliest form in 1979. So
there is a bit more of a head start, usability-wise, than you let on.

And I disagree that Ubuntu cannot be used by non-geeks (like our
Mothers) right now.  I have a group of 6 or 7 of them, who don't know
one another, who are doing just that, and with very little (if any)
assistance from me.

I have other non-geek acquantances using one form or another of windows,
who complain regularly about tech-support issues not related to
hardware. The quality of tech support aside, the real question is if
windows is as easy and intuitive as MS would like everyone to assume,
why is there any need for tech support at all?

-J.



On Wed, 2008-03-26 at 14:05 -0400, Rajiv Gunja wrote:

> I have to say that CNET has a point, even though core Linux Gurus might
> disagree about it. Yes there is lack of leadership or lack of view as to how
> a normal person is going to use it. I asked this same question many years
> ago (2000 or 2001) to IBM Linux President or VP on a talk show with John
> Dvorak, he was mostly concerned about Linux Server rather than Linux
> Desktop.
> Question:
> When will Linux be ready for my Mother or my uncle who are not Computer
> Savvy or my grand-mother who wants to view News, video and email without
> having to know what OS is running?
> 
> Well to be frank, I have not yet used a Linux which does everything MS
> Windows does. The key thing to remember is that with Windows, all you get is
> the GUI there is no such thing directly available to you as a normal user.
> If something happens to my Windows PC, I have no clue what to do with it,
> but if it is Linux or Unix, there are a million ways I can debug it. This
> does not mean that Windows does not have internal debugging stuff, but it is
> rather not obvious from the front end. With Linux each forum will talk about
> editing some file or the other or talk about super-user mode or sudo or
> something like that which non-IT person will have no idea about and will
> give up on it and buy Windows.
> 
> The only Linux I have used which is almost like Windows when it comes to
> usage is Xandros. Yes it is not perfect, but is sure way better than Fedora
> or Mandrake or Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS when it comes down to "USABILITY" or user
> friendliness. Their OS is so much closer to Windows than any other
> distribution can come close to.
> 
> Yes they are not a true Open Source Linux and they are commercial, but their
> OS works, that is why you see it being the default OS on Asus EEE than
> Fedora or Mandriva.
> 
> I have been using Linux as a user (I am not a developer) since 1995/6. I
> have seen it grow from Slackware 1.0 to now Vixta or PCLinuxOS or Ubuntu
> 8.xx or Mandriva 2008 beta. It has improved a great amount, but at the same
> time, MS has grown from DOS to Vista, which might be good or bad, depending
> on what you are using it for.
> 
> As per to the Leadership he is talking about, I think he should have said
> that there is nobody pulling the reigns to the horse that is Linux which is
> going ahead, but might not be in the direction a user wants, but what a
> developer or engineer wants.
> 
> -GGR
> Rajiv G Gunja
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 9:26 AM, Celeste Lyn Paul <celeste at kde.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday 26 March 2008 08:37:14 Matt Burkhardt wrote:
> > > Sorry - I'm really bad with names and couldn't find the KDE usability
> > > person on the members page
> >
> > THat would be me.
> >
> > > CNet has an interesting article about usability and the lack of research
> > > of it in open source -
> > >
> > > http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9903080-16.html
> >
> > Hmm.. interesting.  Too bad he's wrong, or at least not exactly right.
> > Leadership isn't the core problem, vision and understanding of users is.
> > Leadership supports these things.  (Infact, a colleague from OpenUsability
> > and I are writing a conference paper on this exact topic).
> >
> > > --
> > > Matt Burkhardt, MSTM
> > > President
> > > Impari Systems, Inc.
> > > Phone:  (301) 644-3911
> > > mlb at imparisystems.com
> > > http://www.imparisystems.com
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Celeste Lyn Paul
> > KDE Usability Project & HCI Working Group
> > usability.kde.org
> >
> > --
> > Ubuntu-us-md mailing list
> > Ubuntu-us-md at lists.ubuntu.com
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-md
> >