Lets take the worst of windows and make it the unchangeable default of linux

[Nils Philippsen]

On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 17:40, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 16:25, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Mer, Chw 18, 2004 at 04:05:56PM +0100, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > > This has been discussed a billion times before. I'm not having this
> > > argument again. If you want to see the rationale for it, read for
> > > instance http://www.ometer.com/free-software-ui.html or google for some
> > > of the discussions about this. 
> > 
> > Or go read some stuff on both UI design _AND_ on product selection attributes.
> > The latter of which is an established theory driving billions of dollars of
> > marketing research and which in part strongly disagrees with the claims of
> > that article.
> >
> > More specifically there are sets of attributes people use to pick product or
> > service. Some of those attributes are more important than others. Certain
> > attributes are sufficiently important that the user will avoid the product
> > or switch given the opportunity. Others matter a lot to a user but aren't
> > critical, and some attributes are ones that just come down to "I'd prefer if"
> 
> I don't pretend that I'm perfect at UI design, and I don't think that
> all preferences are bad. Thats not even what the essay says, it says
> that all preference additions must be carefully considered, and that
> addition of a preference does have a cost (contrary to what many
> believe). Does the theory of product selection attributes say that you
> should add preferences without considering the costs at all? Or how is
> it disagreeing?

I wouldn't call it "addition of a preference", which it would be if this
mode wouldn't have been there let alone default in previous versions of
the software. It's a question of "how compatible is the new Nautilus to
large parts of its existing user base". When talking about UIs, a lot is
based on what a user is used to do, on his or her background, not on
what would be ideal if he or she weren't exposed to any other artificial
(computer) user interfaces in the past.

> However, I find it interesting that you are the person who argues like
> this. How would you counter someone using your argument when he wants
> support for system V streams or some other (in you opinion) horribly
> ugly but used by important people feature in the Linux kernel. At some
> point you have to stick by what you (as a developer) think is best
> (considering input from other parties), instead of letting the opinions
> of the person with most money decide.

I find it interesting that you bring this analogon when you are a person
who must deal with the differences between a user and a developer.
Besides, System V streams have never been in Linux so it's not something
where you would have to make an option for old-time users of it.
Developers can to a much larger extent be expected to adapt to the
environment where they're programming in than mere users of a computer
IMO.

> > There is a lot of good argument for UI that doesn't throw 1000 options at the
> > user, but the "remove everything" model requires that you know which attributes
> > the majority of the user base consider in which light. Without doing that
> > analysis of the userbase you don't know which attributes you can remove