[Gllug] On Linux desktops...

[Richard Cottrill]

I think you may have missed the point of Jakob Neilsen's work. User
interface is closely related to appearance (esp. in a GUI). Emacs - while it
actually has a GUI (or can) - can hardly be said to be attractive (yes,
that's a part of a 'good' GUI) nor could its help system be regarded as
intuitive, nor are most of its user-space features easy to find.

I could go on but I'll spare you more. The point is that emacs is actually a
great example of a bad interface, and the fact that it is the oldest
GNU/free software and it still has such an appalling interface only serves
to prove Nielsen's point.

I'm toying with ideas for how to leverage old/command-line/other UNIX style
tools into a 'good' UI (with no smaller task than providing a common UI for
Linux - the stumbling block for Linux at the desktop IMHO) and one of the
things I can't get my head around is how to make a solid UI which does
innovate beyond pretty windows. It's just not one of the things that I'm
good at.

My idea is strictly vapour at the moment.

Bottom line: Nielsen may not be right about the future; but he's certainly
learned from the past.

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: gllug-admin at linux.co.uk [mailto:gllug-admin at linux.co.uk]On Behalf
Of David Damerell
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 2:25 PM
To: gllug at linux.co.uk
Subject: [Gllug] On Linux desktops...


On Tuesday, 16 Oct 2001, Murray Walker wrote:
>I guess it is only the desktop they are talking about? Still, I'm not
>entirely sure I agree.
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22239.html
>"...
>Will Linux desktops innovate? No. I don't think of that as being the
>solution: because it's open source.

Jakob Neilsen does talk a lot of sense, especially about Web design;
but in this case I think he's been caught by the fact that innovation
in free software is less obvious. A lot of what Emacs does was very
innovative, but doesn't really get the headlines.

--
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?

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