KDE Usability

First Steps

If KDE is to be recognized as the best free desktop environment, the KDE community must learn to integrate usability testing in its development process. Basic usability testing is not difficult, it isn't expensive and the results are invaluable. This test conducted in early July 2002 with four participants outlines of some of KDE 3.0's shortcomings including inconsistencies in KFileDialog and the difficulties of working with Konqueror's embedded viewers. July 14, 2002

Update: It's been over a year since I wrote this report. Free/Open Source desktop environments continue to show amazing improvements and every day brings its share of new users, be they individuals interested in giving Linux or *BSD a try or business and government entities looking for smarter and cheaper IT platforms. Naturally more users exposed to Free/Open Source desktop environments means greater stress on a number of aspects of those environments not the least of which is usability.

While usability may mean different things to different people, to me it means essentially this:

  1. Usability is not a hood ornament; it's a quality that defines and permeates the final product. It should be made an explicit goal in the design of the whole system and of its parts.
  2. Designing means making decisions on what to include and what to leave out. Refusing to make those choices when designing for usability means passing the complexity on to users which is not acceptable.
  3. Hackers and C.S. geeks are most definitely not everyday computer users and should never assume that what is good for them is also good for all or even most users.

In relations to all three points above, I find that no group of hackers is more dedicated to developing usable Free/Open Source software than the Gnome hackers. In fact, their pledge to create a desktop environment that “Just Works” and their commitment to that goal is already paying off: Gnome 2 (2.4 at the time of this writing) shows signs of maturity, in terms of usability, previously unseen in Free/Open Source software. What's more, by following Gnome's development process I realized that the Gnome hackers' success was due in large part to their attention to the overall design of Gnome and to their realistic understanding of what a desktop environment should offer, two qualities they successfully integrated into the traditional more technical set of attributes Free/Open Source hackers possess.

So to those to whom usability in Free/Open Source software matters I would highly recommend they give Gnome a try. Casual users will find Gnome to be simple, pleasant, unobtrusive, and efficient. People interested in usability will find the Gnome usability team knowledgeable, respectful of their users, and unafraid to address complex design issues. October 21, 2003

Sebastian Biot — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 03:52:42 +0000