Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I just need ..." is difficult. It takes a single strong-willed defender, or some sort of onerous management structure, to prevent the interface from quickly devolving back into the million options or schizming into other projects.
Simply put, it is a desirable state, but an unstable one.
Overly simplified example:
"Can you make this button do X?" where the existing button in so many ways is only distantly connected to X. And then they get stuck on the idea that THAT button has to be where the thing happens, and they stick with it even if you explain that the usual function of that button is Y.
I simplified it saying button, but this applies to processes and other things. I think users sometimes think picking a common thing, button or process that sort of does what they want is the right entry point to discuss changes and maybe they think that somehow saves time / developer effort. Where in reality, just a new button is in fact an easier and less risky place to start.
I didn't say that very well, but I wonder if that plays a part in the endless adding of complexity to UI where users grasp onto a given button, function, or process and "just" want to alter it a little ... and it never ends until it all breaks down.
That is, either determine what the optimal set of features is from the outset, design around that, and freeze or organically reach the optimium and then freeze. After implementing the target feature set, nearly all engineering resources are dedicated to bug fixes and efficiency improvements. New features can be added only after passing through a rigorous gauntlet of reviews that determine if the value of the feature's addition is worth the inherent disruption and impact to stability and resource consumption, and if so, approaching its integration into the existing UI with a holistic approach (as opposed to the usual careless bolt-on approach).
Naturally, there are some types of software where requirements are too fast-moving for this to be practical, but I would hazard a guess that it would work for the overwhelming majority of use cases which have been solved problems for a decade or more and the required level of flux is in reality extremely low.
But it is not a uniquely free software world problem. It is there in the industry as well. But the marketplace serves as a reality check, and kills egregious cases.
[1] Granted, "Political non sense" is a dual-purpose skill. In our context, it can be used both for "defending simplicity", as well as "resisting meaningful progress". It's not easy to tell the difference.
(Commercial software is far from immune to this as well: professional tools like CAD are notoriously arcane and often have a huge number of special-purpose features, and they're not incentivised to improve their UI model because it would alienate their existing users, as well as not show up on the feature lists which are often used to drive purchasing decisions)
Developers built a web UI for creating containers for the labs, taking the advice from this (then future) article too literally. Their app could only build containers, in the approved way. Yet, not all labs were possible to run in containers, and the app did not account for that (it was a TODO). Worse, people responsible for organizing the labs did not know that not all labs are compatible with containers.
Lab coordinators thus continued to create containers even in cases where it didn't make sense, despite the explicit warning "in cases X, Y, Z, do not proceed, call Alexander instead".
So if you make one button you better make that it is always the right button. People follow the happy-but-wrong path way too easily if there is no other obvious one.
It is hard to overestimate the difference between creating tools for people who use the tools for hours every day and creating tools for people who use tools once a week or less.
Having people to man a 1-800 number is one way to get that feedback loop. Professional user testing is another. Telemetry / analytics / user tracking, or even being able to pull out statistics from a database on your server, is yet another. Professional software usually has at least two of these, sometimes all four. Free software usually has none.
There are still FLOSS developers out there who think that an English-only channel on Libera.chat (because Discord is for the uneducated n00bs who don't know what's good for them) is a good way to communicate with their users.
What developers want from software isn't what end users want from software. Take Linux for example. A lot of things on Linux can only be done in the terminal, but the people who are able to fix this problem don't actually need it to be fixed. This is why OSS works so well for dev tools.
Longer term I wonder if complex apps with lots of features might integrate AI in such a way that users can ask it to generate a UI matching their needs. Some will only need a single button, some will need more.
I'd say it's even more than you've stated. Not only for defending an existing project, but even for getting a project going in the first place a dictator* is needed.
I'm willing to be proven wrong, and I know this flies in the face of common scrum-team-everybody-owns approaches.
* benevolent or otherwise
Which is why observability is so damn important.
Observability allows you to grock what your users in aggregate are doing, and adapt your product accordingly. You can take the lower-40% of features and squirrel them away off the main UI. You can take the lowest-10% of features and stick them in a special tools panel that needs to be explicitly hunted down and enabled. You can carve the UI up into three different levels - focused, simple, expert - that hide certain functionality and features, and explicitly expose others in certain ways, and allow the user to switch between them at will.
There is just so many ways that this particular cat can be skinned, you just need to collect the information on how the users are actually using the product. You just need to get permission in ways that encourages your users to participate.
Because without that data, you’re just stabbing in the dark and hoping you aren’t stabbing yourself in the foot. Or worse -- metaphorically ripping open your entire femoral artery by alienating the majority of your users.
Microsoft for a loooong time had that figured out pretty well:
- The stuff that people needed every day and liked to customize the most was directly reachable. Right click on the desktop, that offered a shortcut to the CPL for display and desktop symbols.
- More detailed stuff? A CPL that could be reached from the System Settings
- Stuff that was low level but still needed to be exposed somewhat? msconfig.
- Stuff that you'd need to touch very rarely, but absolutely needed the option to customize it for entire fleets? Group Policy.
- Really REALLY exotic stuff? Registry only.
In the end it all was Registry under the hood, but there were so many options to access these registry keys depending what level of user you were. Nowadays? It's a fucking nightmare, the last truly decent Windows was 7, 10 is "barely acceptable" in my eyes and Windows 11 can go and die in a fire.
I do feel quite strongly that this should be implemented in the app though.
There must be examples of this approach already being used?
In the case of handbrake, I'd just see how I personally use it. Am I doing one thing 99% of the time? Maybe others are too. Let's silo that workflow.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
It would be interesting to have a "simplified linux", or "linux for kids" or similar.
FreeCAD is too complicated. Too many ways to accomplish the same task (nevermind only certain ways work too.)
So everything is simple and only 1 way to create gcode. No hidden menus. No hidden state.
Taking the Handbrake example, providing a default "simple" interface (as Magicbrake does) would be trivial to implement, maintain, and defend. The existing default "super user" interface could be just a toggle away (and make the toggle sticky so a power user doesn't have to touch it but once).
I used to work with an engineer who loved to remind us that a "perfect" interface would have a single button, and that button should be delivered pre-pushed. Always seemed like wise words to me.
My wife is not particularly tech savvy. She is a Linux user, however. When we started a new business, we needed certain applications that only run on Windows and since she would be at the brick and mortar location full time, I figured we could multi-purpose a new laptop for her and have her switch to Windows.
She hated it and begged for us to get a dedicated Windows laptop for that stuff so she could go back to Linux.
Some of you might suggest that she has me for tech support, which is true, but I can't actually remember the last time she asked me to troubleshoot something for her with her laptop. The occasions that do come to mind are usually hardware failure related.
Obviously the thing about generlizations is that they're never going to fit all individuals uniformly. My wife might be an edge case. But she feels at home using Linux, as it's what she's used to ... and strongly loathed using Windows when it was offered to her.
I feel that kind of way about Mac vs PC as well. I am a lifelong PC user, and also a "power user." I have extremely particular preferences when it comes to my UI and keyboard mappings and fonts and windowing features. When I was forced to use a Mac for work, I honestly considered looking for a different position because it was just that painful for me. Nothing wrong with Mac OS X, a lot of people love it. But I was 10% as productive on it when compared to what I'm used to... and I'm "old dog" enough that it was just too much change to be able to bear and work with.
My mom had no trouble adjusting to it. It was all just computer to her in some ways.
It's one of those situations where "close enough" isn't. The fine details matter.
Years later, I built a gaming machine so obviously I needed Windows. Got Win10 and eventually upgraded to 11 and it's just so jarring how unusable it is.
In older windows I could click on my computer to see all my drives and files. Now I have no idea where it is so I just click on the little folder icon at the bottom which opens I think my home directory, then I have to click on somewhere else to see my C and D drives. I can probably make a desktop shortcut or something but point being is that it's un intuitive. And powershell is not a great terminal, and I haven't found one for windows.
SO, after learning that gaming works well on Linux, I recently switched to Ubuntu, and I haven't looked back. Gaming, AI workflows, everything I need works just perfectly, and if it doesn't I can easily customize things to work the way I want it to. I'm not treated as a criminal for installing software on my computer. It's awesome.
In fact, when I had a similar experience I ended up making a short list (which I since lost) of things that seemed terribly wrong UI wise.
True, overall Mac is just different. The issue that I have with that ecosystem is the too many people consider it "perfect" and don't even consider discussing issues and complaining about things. Every product has pluses and minuses, but if you the user "believes blindly" that "there is only one way" that is probably not good for anybody.
After a couple of weeks I adapted just fine to using the Mac, but I surely don't miss it either.
I share this aversion. I have a Mac book work sent me, sitting next to me right now, that I never use. Luckily I’m able to access the vpn via Linux and all the apps I need have web interfaces (office 365).
Linux was like a racing car. Raw and refined. Every control was directly connected to powerful mechanical components, like a throttle, clutch and steering rack. It did exactly what you told it to do, but to be good at it requires learning to finesse the controls. If you failed, the lessons the were delivered swiftly and harshly: you would lose traction, spin and crash.
Windows was more like a daily driver. Things were "easier", but that the cost of having less raw control and power, like a clutch with a huge dual mass flywheel. It's not like you can't break a daily driver, any experienced computer guy has surely broken Windows more than once, but you can just do more within the confines o the sandbox. Linux required you to leave.
It's different now. Distros like Ubuntu do almost everything most people want without having to leave the sandbox. The beautiful part about Linux, though, is it's still all there if you want it and nice to use if you get there, because it's build and designed by people who actually do that stuff. Nowadays I tend to agree it is mostly just what you're used to and what you've already learnt.
I hated OS X when I first used it. A lot, actually. I didn't consider leaving my job over it (I couldn't have afforded it at the time even if I had wanted to), but I did think about trying to do an ultimatum with that employer to tell them to buy me a computer with Windows or let me install Linux on the Macbook (this was 2012 so it had the Intel chip). I got let go from that job before I really got a chance (which itself is a whole strange story), but regardless I really hated macOS at the time.
It wasn't until a few years later and a couple jobs after that I ended up growing to really like macOS, when Mavericks released, and a few years later, I actually ended up getting a job at Apple and I refuse to allow anyone to run Windows in my house.
My point is, I think people can actually learn and appreciate new platforms if they're given a chance.
When we moved to Canada from the UK in 2010 there was no real way to access BBC content in a timely manner. My dad learned how to use a VPN and Handbrake to rip BBC iPlayer content and encode it for use on an Apple TV.
You had to do this if you wanted to access the content. The market did not provide any alternative.
Nowadays BBC have a BritBox subscription service. As someone in this middle space, my dad promptly bought a subscription and probably has never fired up Handbrake since.
> we have somebody who has somehow obtained a "weird" video file
Why are you arriving at the conclusion that this requires complex software, rather than just a simple UI that says "Drop video file here" and "Fix It" below? E.g., instead of your conclusion "stick to your walled-garden-padded-room reality where somebody else gives you a video file that works", another possibility is the simple UI I described? That seemed to me the point of the post.
That’s not always a possibility. See for example:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/20/21262302/ap-test-fail-iph...
Those people didn’t need or want Photoshop or a complicated program with tons of options to convert image formats form anything to anything. Even a simpler app like Preview implies knowing where to look for the conversion part and which format to pick. They could have done instead with a simple window which said “Drop File Here”, and if it’s an HEIC, convert to JPEG. Could even have an option to delete the original, but that’s bout it.
There’s an Alfred workflow which is basically that. It does have some configuration, but the defaults are sensible and doesn’t let you screw up the important part of “detect this format which is causing me trouble and produce a format which will work”
To be fair, the Audacity UX designer made a massive video about the next UX redesign and how he tried to get rid of "modes" and the "Audacity says no" problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYM3TWf_G38
So this problem should get better in the future. Good UX (doesn't necessarily have to have a flashy UI, but just a good UX) in free software is often lacking or an afterthought.
You're making application for yourself and somewhere down pipeline you decide that it could benefit others, so you make it open-source.
People growl at you "It's ugly UX but nice features" when it was originally designed for your own tastes. The latter, people growl at you for "not having X feature, but nice UX".
Your own personal design isn't one-fits-all and designing mocks takes effort. Mental strain and stress; pleasing folks is hard. You now continue developing and redesign the foundations.
A theming engine you think. This becomes top-priority as integration of such becomes a PITA when trying to couple it with future features later.
That itself becomes a black hole in how & schematics. So now you're forever doomed in creating something you never desired for the people who will probably never use it. This causes your project to fail but at least you have multiple revisions of the theming engine. Or you strike it lucky and gain a volunteer.
Now he got rid of the modes by adding handles and border actions - so 1) wasted some space that could be used for information 2) required more precision from the users because now to do the action you must target a tiny handle/border area 3) same, but for other actions as now you have to avoid those extra areas to do other tasks.
While this might be fine for casual users as it's more visible, the proper way out is, of course,... MODES and better ones! Let the default be some more casual mode with your handles, but then let users who want more ergonomics use a keybind to allow moving the audio segment by pressing anywhere in that segment, not just in the tiny handle at the top. And then you could also add all those handles to visually indicate that now segments are movable or turn your pointer into a holding hand etc.
Same thing in the example - instead of creating a whole new separate app with a button you could have a "1-button magicbrake" mode in handbrake
Pre-emptive anti-snark: yes, the old version will still exist... if you can dig up the right github commit and still make it compile in 2030.
1. Free software is developed for the developer's own needs and developers are going to be power users.
2. The cost to expose options is low so from the developer's perspective it's low effort to add high value (perceiving the options as valuable).
3. The developer doesn't know who the customer is and rather than research/refine just tries to hit all the boxes.
4. The distribution of the software itself means anyone who successfully installs it themselves really is a power user and does like the options. Installing it for family and friends doesn't work.
Probably many other factors!
i have seen many comments, by lay people, out of Sonobus [0] being superb on what it does and impressive by being 100% free. that's a niche case that if it was implemented on Ardour, could fit the same problem OP describes
however i can't feel where the problem of FOSS UX scaring normal people is. someone getting a .h264 and a .wav file out of a video-record isn't normal after all. there are plenty of converters on the web, i dunno if they run ffmpeg at their server but i wouldn't get surprised. the problem lies on the whole digital infrastructure running on FOSS without returning anything back. power-user software shouldn't simplify stuff. tech literacy hopefully can be a thing and by quickly learning how to import and export a file in a complex software feels better to install 5 different limited software over the years because your demands are growing
* Free software which gains popularity is developed for the needs of many people - the users who make requests and complaints and the developers.
* Developers who write for a larger audience naturally think of more users' needs. It's true that they typically cater more to making features available than to simplicity of the UI and ease of UX.
> 2. The cost etc.
Agreed!
> 3. The developer doesn't know who the customer is and rather than research/refine just tries to hit all the boxes.
The developer typically knows what the popular use cases would be. Like with the handbrake example. They also pretty much know how newbie users like simplified workflows and hand-holding - but it's often a lot of hassle to create the simplified-with-semi-hidden-advanced-mode interface.
> 4. The distribution of the software itself means anyone who successfully installs it themselves really is a power user
Are people who install, say, the Chrome browser on their PC to be considered power userS? They downloaded and installed it themselves after all... no, I believe you're creating a false dichotomy. Some users will never install anything; some users might install common software they've heard about from friends; and some might actively look for software to install - even though they don't know much about it or about how to operate the apps and OS facilities they already h ave. ... and all of these are mostly non-power-users.
Actual good UI/UX design isn't trivial and it tends to require a tight feedback loop between testers, designers, implementers, and users.
A lot of FOSS simply doesn't have the resources to do that.
I'm not disagreeing with your basic take, but I think this part is a little more subtle.
I'd argue that 80% of users (by raw user count) do want roughly the same 20% of functionality, most of the time.
The problem in FOSS is that average user in the FOSS ecosystem is not remotely close to the profile of that 80%. The average FOSS user is part of the 1% of power users. They actively want something different and don't even understand the mindset of the other 80% of users.
When someone comes along to a FOSS project and honestly tries to rebuild it for the 80% of users, they often end up getting a lot of hate from the established FOSS community because they just have totally different needs. It's like they don't even speak the same language.
But many other projects, perhaps the majority, that is not their goal. By devs for devs, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
Pleasing customers is incredibly difficult and a never-ending treadmill. If it's not the goal then it's not a failure.
There are other times I want cropping or something similar, but it's really only 10-30% of the time. If people want to have a more custom workflow they can use an advanced UI
Some FOSS projects attempt something like this, but it can become a self-reinforcing feedback loop: When you're only testing on current users, you're selecting for people who already use the software. People who already use the software were not scared away by the interface. So the current users tend to prefer the current interface.
Big software companies have the resources to gather (and pay) people for user studies to see what works and what does not for people who haven't seen the software before, or at least don't have any allegiances. If you only ever get feedback from people who have been using the software for a decade, they're going to tell you the UI must not change because they know exactly how to use it by now.
See Don Norman's Design of Everyday things.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/progressive-disclosure/
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/positive-constraints-in-ux-wo...
Definitionally, it means you're hiding (non-disclosing) features behind at least 1 secondary screen. Usually, it means hiding features behind several layers of disclosures.
Making a very simple product more powerful via progressive disclosure can be a good way to give more power to non-power users.
Making a powerful product "simpler" via progressive disclosure can annoy the hell out of power users who already use the product.
It's a little harder to make an easy version
Making the progressive version is very difficult. Where you can please one audience with the powerful and easy versions, you can often disappoint both with the progressive version despite it taking much more effort.
In my personal experience, you're lucky if free software has the budget (time or money) to get to easy. There's very little free software that makes it to progressive.
Whereas with complicated GUI tools, you have to watch a video to learn how to do it.
ffmpeg -i input.avi output.mp4It struck me as a weird example in the OP because I don't really think of Handbrake as a power user tool.
Logic Pro has a “masking tape” mode. If you don’t turn on “Complete Features” [0], you get a simplified version of the app that’s an easier stepping stone from GarageBand. Then check the box and bam, full access to 30 years’ accumulation of professional features in menus all over the place.
[0] https://support.apple.com/guide/logicpro/advanced-settings-l...
For a little history on this design, see https://athinkingperson.com/2010/06/02/where-the-big-green-c...
On the one hand, I want the UI to be simple and minimal enough so even non savvy users can use it.
But on the other hand, I do need to support more advanced features, with more configuration panels.
I learned that the solution in this case is “progressive disclosure”. By default, the app only show just enough UI elements to get the 90% cases done. For the advanced use cases, it takes more effort. Usually to enable them in Settings, or an Inspector pane etc. Power users can easily tinker around and tweak them. While non savvy users can stick with the default, usual UX flow.
Though even with this technique, choosing what to show by default is still not easy. I learned that I need to be clear about my Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and optimize for that profile only.
[0]: https://boltai.com
If you don't want that, it provides you with presets.
I do understand that many users are too lazy to read a manual, do a google search, or put any minimal amount of effort in solving an issue, but making software worse or more convoluted the second you need to have a miniscule degree of extra control seems pointless.
Too many people look at FOSS the same way the look at commercial end user software, they think they are the equivalent of a custom and they should get a premium custom like experience. But that's false. Most of the time FOSS is the result of fixing a developer's problem, or fixing the problems of somebody who also happens to be a developer, and then sharing it all with the world.
You cannot be surprised when a software made by a developer offers every single possible setting, because that's exactly what it was meant to do in the first place.
The solution is not "making software easier", the solution is to RTFM.
The majority of your users are not lazy, they have gazillions of other things to think about and to do. Even when they are developers.
Now, that's up to you, as a maker, to decide who your tool is serving, and for what purpose: it's totally fine and valid to target the power user, or your specific use case. Just don't act surprised, or reject the responsibility, that someone else will find a bigger audience with a lesser product, only because it is more affordable, cognitively speaking.
I'm the kind of person who wants to understand how everything I touch works (and the kind of person that does a lot of video recompression and cares about quality and filesize tradeoff) and even I hate Handbrake's UI. Every time I set up a new machine I spend an hour or two looking for an internet guide to what settings mean what to configure a preset, and then I use that preset basically exclusively. I'd much rather have a couple of drop targets, one of which is "Bluray 1080p quality".
I dread "Can you add a button..." Or worse, "Can you add a check box..." Not only does that make it worse for other users, it also makes it worse for you, even if you don't realize it yet.
What you need is to take their use case and imagine other ways to get there. Often that means completely turning their idea on its head. It can even help if you're not in the trenches with them, and can look at the bigger picture rather than the thing that is interfering with their current work flow.
Eg an app to prevent MacOS going to sleep. I want a checkbox to also stop an external display sleeping. I don't need my entire usage of the app and my computer-feature desires analysed and interpreted in a way that would make a psychoanalyst look like a hack.
But yes in a professional setting people do use "Can we add a button" to attempt to subvert your skillset, your experience, to take control of the implementation, and to bypass solid analysis and development practices
You can't do anything wrong with it. There's no UI to fiddle with WiFi. It's all pre-configured to work automatically in the local WLAN (only; outside, all that's needed is to borrow someone's phone to look for the list of wifi nets in the area and type the name of selected network to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf). But there's rarely any need to go out anyway, so this is almost never an issue.
There are no buttons to click, ANYWHERE. Windows don't have confusing colorful buttons in the header. You open the web browser by pressing Alt + [. It shows up immediately after about 5 seconds of loading time. So the user action <-> feedback loop is rather quick. You close it with Alt + Backspace (like deleting the last character when writing text, simple, everyone's first instinct when you want to revert last action)
The other shortcut that closes the UI picture is Alt + ]. That one opens the terminal window. You can type to the computer there, to tell it what you want. Which is usually poweroff, reboot, reboot -f (as in reboot faster). It's very simple and relatable. You don't click on your grandma to turn it off, after all. You tell it to turn off. Same here.
All in all, Alt + [ opens your day. Alt + ] gives you a way to end it. Closing the lid sometimes even suspends the notebook, so it discharges slightly slowerly in between.
It's glorious. My gf uses it this way and has no issues with it (anymore). I just don't understand why she doesn't want to migrate to Linux on her own notebook. Sad.
Therefore: If you want lots of users, design for the median user; if you don't, this doesn't apply to you
The problem with why so many OSS/free software apps look bad can be demonstrated by the (still ongoing) backlash to Gnome 3+. It just gets exhausting defending every decision to death.
Sometimes projects need the spine to say "no, we're not doing that."
There's nothing wrong with an opinionated desktop environment or even an opinionated Linux distribution. But, prior to GNOME 3, the project was highly configurable. Now it is not.
When people start up new highly opinionated projects (e.g. crunchbang, Omarchy), the feedback is generally more positive because those who try it and stick with it are the ones who like the project's opinions. The people who don't like those opinions just stop using it. There isn't a large, established base of longstanding users who are invested in workflows, features, and options.
I know about 10 people in real life that uses Handbrake. And 10 of them use it to rip Blu-ray discs and store media files on their NAS. It will piss them off if you hide all the codec settings and replace the main screen with a giant "convert to Facebook compatible video" button.
Instead, do it like how iina[1] packages mpv[2].
The "advanced mode" rarely actually covers all the needs of an advanced user (because software is never quite everything to everyone), but it's at least better at handling both types of users.
Not all free software has this problem... Mozilla and Thunderbird I've had my parents on for years. It's not a ton to learn, and they work fine.
Taking the case of Photoshop vs. Gimp - I don't think the problem is complexity, lol. It's having to relearn everything once you're used to photoshop. (Conversely, I've never shelled out for Adobe products, and now don't want to have to relearn how to edit images in photoshop or illustrator)
Let's do another one. Windows Media Player (or more modern - "Movies & TV"). Users want to click on a video file and have it play with no fuss. VLC and MPC work fine for that! If you can manage to hold onto the file associations. That's why Microsoft tries so hard to grab and maintain the file associations.
I could go on... I think the thesis of this article is right for some pieces of software, but not all. It's worth considering - "all models are wrong, but some are useful".
I don't think this comparison is really accurate, Adobe's suite is designed for professionals that are working in the program for hours daily (e.g., ~1000 hours annually for a creative professional). There are probably some power users of The GIMP that hit similar numbers, but Creative Cloud has ~35-40 million subscribers, these are entirely different programs for entirely different classes of users.
Huge amounts of dumbed-down software that won't do interesting things is made. There's no need to present this challenge.
> a person who needs or wants that stuff can use Handbrake.
That's the part that is often ignored: providing the version with the features.
1. Some day, those users think "Hey, I'm not happy with some setting, what do I do?" and they can do nothing.
2. The users who need more functionality can't get it - and feel like they have to constantly wrestle with the app, and that it constantly confounds and trips them up, even when they express their clear intents. It's not like the GNOME apps have a "simple mode" and an "advanced mode"
3. The GNOME apps don't even really go along those lines. You see, even non-savvy users enjoy consistentcy and clarity; and the GNOME people have made their icons inscrutable; take over the window manager's decorations to "do their own thing"; hide items behind a hamburger menu, as though you're on a mobile phone with no screen space; etc. So, even for the non-savvy users - the UX is kind of bad. And just think of things like the GTK file picker. Man, that's a little Pandora's box right there, for the newbie and power user alike.
It works exactly for TV remote controls. Or, rather, it worked before everybody had an HDMI player or smart TVs. It doesn't work for TV remotes now either.
Handbrake is a bit like TV remotes in the turn of the century. That's an exception even among free software, and absolutely no mainstream DE is like that.
They are actually, literally, removing features. That's not an opinion, that's what is actually happening, repeatedly.
Now, maybe you say good riddance. Fine. However, it is indisputable that now the desktop is slightly less capable. The software can do less stuff than before.
Note that I've always been a KDE user...
The machine came with Windows 10 by default and what he needed was Firefox and FreeCell, and FreeCell on Windows10 was atrocious.
He likes it a lot and the only thing was that I had to put same wallpaper as he had on Windows7 and icons in the same places.
The "linux is to complicated" argument just doesn't hold true anymore! It's nice and easy, including the installation (even I was surprised)
Dev: I'm too brave to let you do that
When it comes to software intended for the general public it doesn't take bravery to decide that every user should only ever be allowed to do things exactly how you'd want them done. I might be more likely to attribute that to arrogance. Really, for something like converting audio/video I'd just see the inflexible software with few if any options as too limited for my needs (current, future, or both) and go looking for something more powerful.
It's better to not invest my time on software that is overly restrictive when more useful options are available, even if I don't need all of those options right now because it'll save me the trouble of having to hunt down something better later since I've already got what I need on my systems.
I do not readily empathize with people who are scared of software, because my generation grows up tinkering with software. I'd like to understand why people would become scared of software in the first place.
The world is a complicated place, and there is a veritable mountain of things a person could learn about nearly any subject. But sometimes I don't need or want to learn all those things - I just want to get one very specific task done. What I really appreciate is when an expert who has spent the time required to understand the nuances and tradeoffs can say "just do this."
When it comes to technology 'simple' just means that someone else made a bunch of decisions for me. If I want or need to make those decisions myself then I need more knobs.
Computer damage is one potential consequence on the extreme end. On the conservative end, the software might just not work the way you want and you waste your time. It’s a mental model you have to develop. Even as a technical power user though, I want to reduce the risk of wasting my time, or even confront the possibility that I might waste my time, if I don’t have to.
people arent afraid of doing 2^n stuff, its just that we have a gut sense that its gonna take more time than its worth. im down to try 10-100 things, but if its gonna be 100 million option combinations i have to tinker with, thats just not worth it.
The thing is this takes a lot of resources to get right. FOSS developers simply don't have the wherewithal - money, inclination or taste - to do this. So, by default, there are no simple things. Everything's complex, everything needs training. And this is okay because the main users of FOSS software is others of a similar bend as the developers themselves.
The things the user does most frequently need to be the easiest things to do.
You expose the stuff the user needs to do quickly without a lot of fuss, and you can bury the edge cases in menus.
Sadly a lot of software has this inverted.
> Normal people often struggle with converting video. ... the format will be weird. (Weird, broadly defined, is anything that won’t play in QuickTime or upload to Facebook.)"
Except normal people don't use MacOS and don't even know what QuickTime is. Including the US, the MacOS user share is apparently ~11%. Take the US out, and that drops to something like... 6%, I guess? And Macs are expensive - prohibitively expensive for people in most countries. So, normal people use Windows I'm afraid.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
In fact, if you disregard the US, Linux user share seems to be around half of the Mac share, making the perspective of "normal people use Macs not FOSS" even sillier.
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PS - Yes, I know the quality of such statistics is low, if you can find better-quality user share analysis please post the link.
You should know the common retort - but it's different 20%! So you can't create a one-button UI that covers 80%
But the challenge is real, though mostly "unsolvable" as there is too much friction in making good easily customizable UIs
It's scary for folks who are used to transactional relationships to encounter these different mindsets.
WHY IS THERE CODE??? MAKE A FUCKING .EXE FILE AND GIVE IT TO ME. these dumbfucks think that everyone is a developer and understands code. well i am not and i don't understand it. I only know to download and install applications. SO WHY THE FUCK IS THERE CODE? make an EXE file and give it to me. STUPID FUCKING SMELLY NERDS"
I also heard that, once you try to apply this concept, you see that everyone needs a different 20%. Any thoughts on this?
You can always cherry pick apps to fit a narrative.
FOSS apps with simple interfaces: Signal, Firefox, VLC, Gnome [1], Organic Maps, etc, the list goes on and on.
[1] it’s not a simple app but I think there’s a good argument to be made that it’s simpler/cleaner than commercial competitors.
https://contemporary-home-computing.org/RUE/
That's what "UX" is all about. "Scripting the users", minimizing and channeling their interactions within the system. Providing one button that does exactly what they want. No need to "scare" them with magical computer technology. No need for them to have access to any of it.
It's something that should be resisted, not encouraged. Otherwise you get generations of technologically illiterate people who don't know what a directory is. Most importantly, this is how corporations justify locking us out of our own devices.
> We are giving up our last rights and freedoms for “experiences,” for the questionable comfort of “natural interaction.” But there is no natural interaction, and there are no invisible computers, there only hidden ones.
> Every victory of experience design: a new product “telling the story,” or an interface meeting the “exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother” widens the gap in between a person and a personal computer.
> The morning after “experience design:” interface-less, desposible hardware, personal hard disc shredders, primitive customization via mechanical means, rewiring, reassembling, making holes into hard disks, in order to to delete, to logout, to “view offline.”
Always have been.
We could argue about the exact value of N, but in the present universe nearly anything that scares at least 1 out of N normies into coming back to their senses is literally a heroic act.
EDIT: You linked a great post btw. Consider: "Rich User Experience" as the experience of being a rich person who uses. It's all right there in the etymology, after all words are also designed artifacts. "You wanna be rich? You gotta be our customer."
I don't want most of consumer electronics to act like a computer, it is a deficiency for me. I chose "dumb" Linux-based eBook reader instead of Android-based, because I want it to read books, full stop.
I'm no dentist, I go to dentists. I let them work, and try not to be too annoying. I learn the minimum that I need to know to follow the directions that they deliberately make very simple for me.
This will result in generations of generally dentistry ignorant people, but I am not troubled by this.
As technologically competent people, one of our desires should be to help people maintain the ignorance level that they prefer, and at every level steer them to a good outcome. Let them manage their own time. If they want privacy and control, let's make sure they can have it, rather than lecturing them about it. My grandmother is in her 90s and she doesn't want people reading her emails, listening to her calls or tracking her face. She is not prepared to deal with more than a couple of buttons, and they should be large and hopefully have pictures on them that explain what they do. It's my job to square that circle.
I proactively stopped that decades ago.
"Oh, you use Windows? Sorry, I haven't used it in over a decade so I can't help. If you have any Linux questions, let me know!"
BUT with time and a variable effort a regular user can get accustomed to the new philosophy and be successful. Either by persistant use, by using different OSS apps in series or by touching the command line. Happy user of Firefox, Libre office, Avidemux, Virt-manager (sic)
I think the other big reason is availability of talent. FOSS is made by devs who usually are already well off and have time to contribute. You wont find as many artists nor graphic designers with the same privilege . so if there's bo designers on a project you get the bare basics.
Free and open source developers are free to build whatever the heck software they want on the basis of "I find this software neat/useful/funny, you can use it too if you'd like".
The way it works is you grab the sources, make a fork, implement your desired changes (e.g. hide 80% of the features), and do a release that is in line with your own vision. "But that's a lot of work" someone might say, ... and yet people routinely think someone else should do such volumes of work for them in order to ensure a project is in line with their needs.
TFA is making the point that, if your goal is to make software that is broadly useful (and maybe that's not your goal), then you should try to make the most common use-cases easy and intuitive, even if that means compromising on complex ones or edge-cases.
Please assume I'm smarter than I actually am -- I will figure it out no problems. I like complex interfaces that allow me to do my task faster, especially if I'm using it often (e.g. for work).
For telling software devs to embrace traditional design wisdom, using TV remotes is an interesting example - cause aside from the commonly used functionality people actually care about (channels, volume, on/off, maybe subtitles/audio language) the rest should just be hidden under a menu and the fact that this isn't the case demonstrates bad design.
It's probably some legacy garbage, along the lines of everyone having an idea for what a TV remote is "supposed" to look like and therefore the manufacturers putting on buttons in plain view that will never get used and that you'd sometimes need the manual to even understand.
At the same time, it might also be possible that the FOSS software that's made for power users or even just people with needs that are slightly more complex than the baseline is never going to be suited for a casual user - for example, dumbing down Handbrake and hiding functionality power users actually do use under a bunch of menus would be really annoying for them and would slow them down.
You can try to add "simple" and "advanced" views of your UI, but that's the real disconnect here - different users. Building simplified versions with sane defaults seems nice for when there is a userbase that needs it.
Remotes are fine. Except the modern ones that have a touchpad and, like, 8 buttons, four of which are ads.
People can handle many buttons just fine. Even one year old kids don't have a problem with this, which becomes apparent if you ever watch a small child play. The only people who have a problem here are UX designers high on paternalistic approach to users.
The really hard problem to solve is making an UI where the simple thing is easy and the complex thing is still possible.
But that requires 1) strong leadership 2) people with the correct skill set for UX design.
Making a clean UI means cutting things out. And that's not easy in many large OSS projects because every menu item and every button is someone's pet feature. The leaders in the projects are often the most senior _developers_, not UX experts. It's (I'm assuming) a lot less common to have good telemetry and user labs in OSS than it is for commercial software. So you also might not know exactly what features people use and how they use them, making it even harder to remove features.
I think the author is absolutely right. If Handbrake is intimidating, or hard to use without reading a manual in order to do just the simple use case that 80% of users have, then they have failed in making a good UX. A good UX would make the simple thing easy without sacrificing power for the complex case. And the author is absolutely having the right idea when making a simpler wrapper for the powerful software.
I’ve been ripping old DVDs recently. I just want something that feels simple from Handbrake: a video file I can play on my Apple TV that has subtitles that work (not burned in!) with video and audio quality indistinguishable from playing the DVD (don’t scale the video size or mess with the frame rate!), at as small a file size as is practical. I’m prepared for the process to be slow.
I’ve been messing with settings and reading forum posts (probably from similarly qualified neophytes) for a day now and think I’ve got something that works - though I have a nagging suspicion the file size isn’t as small as it could be and the quality isn’t as good as it could be. And despite saving it as a preset, I for some reason have to manually stop the subtitles from being burned in for every new rip.
Surely what I want is what almost everyone wants‽ Is there a simple way to get it? (I think this is a rhetorical question but would love it not to be…)
For example, I'd love Gimp to have a Basic mode that would hide everything except the basic tools like Crop and Brush. Like basic mspaint.
It's been hard pushing back and saying no to all the new features. We've started work on a plugin API so that people can add features and opt in to the complexity.
So I'd like to welcome the author to make more apps based on FOSS.
We're getting there. I run Linux Mint with an XFCE desktop -- an intentionally minimal setup. The system performs automatic updates and the desktop layout/experience resembles older Windows desktops before Microsoft began "improving" things. No ads, no AI.
I'm by no means an end user, but in Linux I see incremental progress toward meeting the needs of that audience. And just in time too, now that Microsoft is more aggressively enshittifying Windows.
What's really missing are online fora able to help end users adjust to Linux -- helpful without being superior or condescending. Certainly true for Windows, not yet true for Linux.
Dunno why people assume that FOSS developers are just dummies lacking insight but otherwise champing at the bit to provide the same refinement and same customer service experience as the "open source" projects that are really just loss leaders of some commercial entity.
Which kind of fulfills the best of both worlds: Welcoming for beginners, but full-powered for advanced users.
More software should be designed this way.
Being super simple ducks the problem.
Maybe handbrake was never meant to be used by people who need the one button solution? That one button solution exists all over the place.
It has nothing to do with free vs not-free
In addition to this issue, I've also had good conversations with a business owner about why he chose a Windows architecture for his company. Paying money to the company created a situation where the company had a "skin-in-the-game" reason to offer support (especially back when he founded the company, because Microsoft was smaller at the time). He likes being able to trust that the people who build the architecture he relies on for his livelihood won't just get bored and wander off and will be responsive to specific concerns about the product, and he never had the perception that he could rely on that with free software.
using the remote analogy, the taped versions are useful for (many!) specific people, but shipping the remote in that configuration makes no sense
i think normal people don't want to install an app for every specific task either
maybe a solution can look like a simple interface (with good defaults!!) but with an 'advanced mode' that gives you more options... though i can't say i've seen a good example of this, so it might be fundamentally flawed as well
I wanted to write an article or short blog post about how Windows 10, menus and javascript, increasingly tuck away important tools/buttons in little folds. This was many months ago.
I want to write it and title it, "What the tuck?" But tuck refers exactly to the kind of hidden menus that make those so called sleek and simple UIs for the the 80% of users.
The problem is that it stupefies computing literacy, especially mobile web versions.
Perhaps not every casual web browser needs to sit at a desk to learn website navigation. Then again, they may never learn anything productive on their own.
These kind of ui are extremely hard to make.
True but with a caveat: Those people rarely need the same 20% of your features.
My criticism of Free Software is exactly the reverse. There isn't enough of that kind of stuff on Linux!
Though to be sure, the Mac category (It Has One Button) is even more underserved there, and I agree that there should be more! Heck, most of the stuff I've made for myself has one button. Do one thing and do it well! :)
> Do one thing and do it well!
This does not necessarily mean that it would have only one button (or any buttons). Depending on what is being done, there may be many options for being done, although there might also be default settings. A command-line program might do it better that you only need to specify the file name, but if there are options (what options and how many options there will be depends what program it is) then you can also specify those options if the default settings are not suitable.
Handbrake is only popular _because_ it is so powerful, not in spite of it.
And IMO, Handbreak is more complicated than CLI ffmpeg. It's really chaotic.
FOSS's issue isn't that they trust users too much, it's that they aren't taking different types of users into account.
Corporate-built software that's locked down or limited like iCloud is 100% about not trusting the users.
I am in favour of simplified apps like this, maybe it can be a simple toggle switch in the top right corner between simple and advanced. Similar to that stupid new version of outlook I have to constantly switch back to the old version.
This is so common, to the point that it's a FOSS misconception #1 for me. They can't get it that the developer can develop the software to solve only their specific problem and not interested in support, feature contributions, and other improvements or usecases.
In this particular case I'd just tell people to download and use VLC Player. But I get the point.
Concise
Focus only on the parts that are really needed, necessary, or the most important; hide the currently unnecessary or secondary, or simply remove the truly unnecessary and secondary; remove all unnecessary
Maybe it can help you
It also opens up opportunities for money-making, and employment in Free Software for people who do not program. The kind of hand-holding that some people prefer or need in UX is not easy to design, and the kind of marketing that leads people to the product is really the beginning of that process.
Nobody normal cares that it's a thin layer over the top of a bunch of copyleft that they wouldn't understand anyway (plenty of commercial software is a thin layer over permissively licensed stuff.) Most people I know barely know what files and directories are, and the idea of trying to learn fills them with an anxiety akin to math-phobia. Some (most?) people get a lot of anxiety about being called stupid, and they avoid the things that caused it to happen.
They do want privacy and the ownership of their own devices as much as everyone else however, they just don't know how much they're giving up when they do a particular software thing, or (like all of us) know that it is seriously difficult if not possible to avoid the danger.
Give people mock EULAs to click through, but they will enumerate the software's obligations to them, not their obligations to the software. Help them remain as ignorant as they want about how everything works, other than emphasizing the assurances that the GPL gives them.
The difficult interface was a good filter.
The majority of users probably want the same small subset of features from a program and the rest are just confusing noise.
Whereas I think they are in fact describing 'average' people.
I suspect most HNers self-assess as normal, but are also self-aware enough to acknowledge (rightly or wrongly) they're not average.
Certainly I have felt overwhelmed with the 'why have they broken so many conventions?' sensation with, invariably, audio apps on microsoft platforms - but OTOH the implied expectation that all software should have a comparably broken UI as mildly modern microsoft word versions expresses a collective poverty of expectations.
ffmpeg -i example.mkv example.mp4
In almost all cases I don’t want to mess with the defaults, because I know diddly about video formats.
One of the truest things I've read on HN. I've also tried to visit this concept with a small free image app I made (https://gerry7.itch.io/cool-banana). Did it for myself really, but thought others might find it useful too. Fed up with too many options.
It’s like creating a new tv controller with fewer options.
Yes, but those 80% all use a different subset of the 20% of features. So if you want to make them all happy, you need to implement 100% of the features.
I see the pattern so often. There is a "needlessly complicated" product. Someone thinks we can make it simpler, we rewrite it/refactor the UI. Super clean and everything. But user X really needs that one feature! Oh and maybe lets implement Y. A few years down the line you are back to having a "needlessly complicated" product.
If you think it could easily be done better, you don't understand the problem domain well enough yet. Real simplicity looks easy but is hard to achieve.
Maybe we should just say free software is amazing and not a tool for home users, in order to get home users to use it.
BTW, if all you can do it drag-and-drop a file, do you need the "convert" button?
Grab an LLM and make a nice single button app they can use.
LLMs writing code, plus free software, a match made in heaven.
It’s also a new take on Unix “do one thing well” philosophy.
Seems like a win-win, take my money solution, for some reason the market (and I guess that means investors) are not pursuing this as a consumer service?
Why? The same kind of people who find Handbrake intimidating also find the concept of files and juggling multiple applications intimidating.
The disaster that is "modern UX" is serving no one. Infantilizing computer users needs to stop.
Computer users hate it - everything changes all the time for the worse, everything gets hidden by more and more layers until it just goes away entirely and you're left with just having to suck it up.
"Normal people" don't even have computers anymore, some don't even have laptops, they have tablets and phones, and they don't use computer programs, they use "apps".
What we effectively get is:
- For current computer users: A downward spiral of everything sucking more with each new update.
- For potential new computer users: A decreasing incentive to use computers "Computers don't really seem to offer anything I can't do on my phone, and if I need a bigger screen I'll use my tablet with a BT keyboard"
- For the so-called "normal people" the article references (I believe the article is really both patronizing and infantalizing the average person), there they're effectively people who don't want to use computers, they don't want to know how stuff works, what stuff is, or what stuff can become, they have a problem they cannot put into words and they want to not have the problem because the moving images of the cat should be on the place with the red thing. - They use their phones, their tablets, and their apps, their meager and unmotivated desire to do something beyond what their little black mirror allow them is so week that any obstacle, any, even the "just make it work" button, is going to be more effort than they're willing (not capable of, but willing) to spend.
Thing is, regardless of particular domain, doing something in any domain requires some set of understanding and knowledge of the stuff you're going to be working with. "No, I just want to edit video, I don't want to know what a codec is" well, the medium is a part of the fucking message! NOTHING you do where you work with anything at all allows you to work with your subject without any understanding at all of what makes up that subject. You want to tell stories, but you don't want to learn how to speak, you want to write books, but you don't want to learn how to type, write or spell ? Yes, you can -dictate- it, which is, in effect, getting someone competent to do the thing for you.. You want to be a painter, but you don't care about canvas, brushes, techniques, or the differences between oil, acrylic and aquarelle, or colors or composition, just want to make picture look good? You go hire a fucking painter, you don't go whining about how painting is inherently harder than it ought to be and how it's elitist that they don't just sell a brush that makes a nice painting. (Well, it _IS_ elitist, most people would be perfectly satisfied with just ONE brush, and it should be as wide as the canvas, and it should be pre-soaked in BLUE color, come on, don't be so hard on those poor people, they just want to create something, they shouldn't have to deal with all your elitist artist crap!) yeah, buy a fucking poster!
I'm getting so sick and tired of this constant attack on the stuff _I_ use every day, the stuff _I_ live and breathe, and see it degenerated to satisfy people who don't care, and never will.. I'm pissed, because, _I_ like computers, I like computing, and I like to get to know how the stuff works, _ONCE_ and gain a deep knowledge of it, so it fits like an old glove, and I can find my way around, and then they go fuck it over, time and time again, because someone who does not want to, and never will want to, use computers, thinks it's too hard..
Yeah, I really enjoy _LISTENING_ to music, I couldn't produce a melody if my life depended on it (believe me, I've tried, and it's _NOT_ for lack of amazingly good software), it's because I suck at it, and I'm clearly not willing to invest what it takes to achieve that particular goal.. because, I like to listen to music, I am a consumer of it, not a producer, and that's not because guitars are too hard to play, it's because I'm incompetent at playing them, and my desire to play them is vastly less than my desire to listen to them.
Who are most software written for? - People who hate computers and software.
What's common about most software? - It kind of sucks more and more.
There's a reason some of the very best software on the planet is development tools, compilers, text editors, debuggers.. It's because that software is made by people who actually like using computers, and software, _FOR_ people who actually like using computers and software...
Imagine if we made cars for people who HATE to drive, made instruments for people who don't want to learn how to play.. Wrote books for people who don't want to read, and movies for people who hate watching movies. Any reason to think it's a reasonable idea to do that? Any reason to think that's how we get nice cars, beautiful instruments, interesting books and great movies ?
Fuck it. Just go pair your toaster with your "app" whatever seems particularity important.
Not 5 minutes after that someone else on the comments went on a weird rant about how allegedly Inkscape and all FOSS was "communist" and "sucked" and capitalist propietary stuff was "superior".
While I agree that people generally feel better by getting something with little effort, I think that there is a longer-term disservice here.
Once upon a time, it used to be understood that repeated use of a tool would gradually make you better at it - while starting with the basics, you would gradually explore, try more features and gradually become a power user. Many applications would have a "tip of the day" mechanism that encouraged users to learn more each time. But then this "Don't Make me Think" book and mentality[0] started catching on, and we stopped expecting people to learn about the stuff that they're using daily.
We have a high percentage of "digital natives" kids, now reaching adulthood without knowing what a file is [1] or how to type on a keyboard [2]. Attention spans are falling rapidly, and even the median time in front of a particular screen before switching tasks is apparently down from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to 40 seconds in 2023 [3] (I shudder to think what it is now). We as a civilization have been gradually offloading all of our technical competency and agency onto software.
This is of course leading directly to agentic AI, where we (myself included) convince ourselves that the AI is allowing us to work at a higher level, deciding the 'what', while the computer takes care of the 'how' for us, but of course there's no clear delineation between the 'what' and 'how', there's just a ladder of abstraction, and as we offload more and more into software, the only 'what' we'll have left is "keep me fed and entertained".
We are rapidly rolling towards the world of Wall-E, and at this pace, we might live to see the day of AIs asking themselves "can humans think?".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think
[1] https://futurism.com/the-byte/gen-z-kids-file-systems , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30253526
[2] https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/gen-z-typing-computers-keyboar... , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41402434
[3] https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/att...
That’s very much dependent on the author correctly judging what should go there though
For those of you thinking (which 20%) following that article from the other day — this is where a good product sense and knowing which 80% of people you want to use it first. You could either tack on more stuff from there to appeal to the rest of the 20% of people, or you could launch another app/product/brand that appeals to another 80% of people. (e.g. shampoo for men, pens for women /s)
Q: Why does God allow so much suffering?
A: What? There is no God. We invented him.
Q: Doesn't this mean life has no purpose?
A: Create your own purpose. Eliminate the middleman.
Q: But doesn't atheism allow evil people free rein?
A: No, it's religion that does that. A religious evil person can always claim God either granted him permission or forgave him after the fact. And he won't be contradicted by God, since ... but we already covered that.
Hmm. If it works for HandBrake, it might work for life.