Usability Summary

[Micheal]

On Mon, 2004-07-12 at 17:52, Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> I've spent a long time thinking about this and putting together thoughts and 
> ideas I've found scattered across the internet.
> 
> Abstract of this email:
> 
> I think the best approach to usability is just to keep doing what we are 
> doing.
> 
> Explanation:
> 
> I keep thinking back to the Cathedral and Bazaar. We are the bazaar. That is 
> what defines us.
> 
> My imagination of this scenario is as follows. Let's suppose it is summer 
> and a lot of people would like to eat watermelons. So they go to the bazaar 
> to eat watermelons, only to discover a critical shortage of watermelons. 
> The watermelons that are available are fresh, juicy, and crunchy. (This 
> represents the software that we have now that is usable. We have a lot more 
> than you think.) But there are too many corners of the bazaar where nobody 
> even knows what a watermelon is. (Obviously, projects that totally lack any 
> form of usability.)
> 
> Newspaper headline: "Critical shortage of watermelons; bazaar method doomed 
> to failure."
> 
> Concerned community leaders: "Hey, we got a serious problem here! We are 
> doomed unless we do something!"
> 
> Slashdot crowd: "The sky is falling! We can never beat the cathedral! Oh woe 
> is us!"
> 
> The cathedral types point to us bazaar types and say, "Look, we have 
> watermelons. We have lots of watermelons. They don't taste very good, they 
> aren't exactly green and red, but they are watermelons." (This is a 
> comparison to the fact that they pay lip service to usability, but in the 
> end, it really isn't that great. "Microsoft" and "Usability" go together 
> like "Microsoft" and "Security". ("Microsoft" and "Software" don't really 
> go that well together either, come to think of it.))
> 
> But look at the bazaar. We have the best and the brightest apples, oranges, 
> cherries, and everything else you can imagine. Our cantelopes (representing 
> security) are cheap, tasty, and large. Our pomegranates (representing 
> uptime) are impeccable. You can get these from almost any stand, and they 
> are all excellent. (This represents the fact that our software is secure, 
> stable, and only getting better with age.)
> 
> A few years ago, nobody knew much about what a cantelope was, and totally 
> forgot about pomegranates, let alone what they should taste like. Now 
> everyone knows what a cantelope tastes like and they expect it everywhere. 
> People see the fresh pomegranates and salivate to get their hands on one. 
> The cathedral types can no longer deny the value of our fruits. In fact, 
> since the bazaar was formed, several cathedral types have set up shop 
> (albeit a large, cathedral-looking shop) in the bazaar. (IBM, Novell, 
> Fujitsu, Sony, etc...)
> 
> The cathedral cantelopes are withered, expensive, and covered with flies. 
> You can't tell its a cantelope except they labelled it such. Mr. Gates' 
> cathedral is touting that next year's cantelopes will be the finest ever 
> seen anywhere.
> 
> And pomegranates? What are those and why would you want one?
> 
> What do we as a community do to solve our critical watermelon shortage? We 
> innovate, we educate, and we actually carry out the actions necessary. You 
> can see now how more and more projects are discovering the wonderful world 
> of usability. They are already trying to apply these principles to their 
> software. I thought when I started my investigative journey that usability 
> was an exciting new topic in the Open Source world. I was pleasantly 
> surprised to find it was not new, but still exciting.
> 
> The techniques that work for the cathedral in raising "good" watermelons 
> won't work for us. We can't do scientifically based usability studies. 
> People in the industry are now questioning the value of them anyway. They 
> prefer big design up front lately. We can't do big design up front either.
> 
> But we can do direct developer-user communications. If we need to, we can 
> have a very thin layer between the two so we can scale. I see it right now. 
> Users come to the Fedora list. They get help. If there are real issues, it 
> goes to the devel list. That is happening as I speak in almost every 
> project. It's been happening for the longest time.
> 
> We can do usability design, just not the big design part. We can have the 
> best and the brightest willingly give away their time to do what they love. 
> We can have corporate sponsors. We do have corporate sponsors.
> 
> The more I look at it, usability has always been around. It has always been 
> in our blood. In fact, one can argue that open source is all about 
> usability, nothing more or less. This whole "scratch an itch" thing was all 
> about usability in the first place!
> 
> What do we do now? We know what the problem is: Our software stinks. We know 
> how to fix it. We've been doing it all along. Most people take the software 
> stinkiness as a given and are constantly searching for ways to reduce the 
> odor. At least we're honest about it. The cathedral types coat their 
> software with three layers of dried perfume before sending it out the door.
> 
> But what do we do about usability in particular?
> 
> Absolutely nothing.
> 
> At least, nothing different than what we do now.
> 
> There are already usability experts educating the masses. They are already 
> designing next generation software. They are already getting their ideas 
> implemented. Their numbers are growing, the number of projects that are 
> consciously targetting usability is growing, and the usability of our 
> projects is increasing dramatically.
> 
> We have been actively encouraging this activity, and people that get in the 
> way of them are derided. We sponsor good behavior - security, stability, 
> usability, compatibility, etc.. - and we have been consistent in 
> denounciong bad behavior - insecurity, instability, unusability, 
> incompatibility, etc... This will only continue.
> 
> Future newspaper headlines:
> 
>  - Open source software wins again: Voted most usable by double blind panel 
> of new computer users.
> 
>  - With usability, security, stability, and compatibility, why not switch to 
> Linux?
> 
>  - Microsoft vows to make usability #1 priority
> 
> -- 
> Jonathan Gardner
> jgardner at jonathangardner.net
> 


Excellent posting Jonathan. I agree totally!