Dumbing-down
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| penguinist Feb 18, 2014 10:12 AM EDT |
While reading this article, it occurred to me that what is happening with KDE is a symptom of a wider trend going on in software today. The "dumbing-down" of user software is all about making it easier for lower-functioning people to use software, and this is accomplished by: 1. removing user choice (the software makes the "right" choices for the user) 2. always works (meaning the user is not considered qualified to administer a system, the software must try to anticipate all cases) 3. shield the user from complexity (by creating an even more complex underlying infrastructure) A few examples of this "dumbing-down" trend come to mind: - KDE has dumbed-down its destop environment much to the dismay of high-functioning users like the author of this article. - It might surprise some, but I put the implementation of the grub2 boot loader into the Dumbing-down category. I used to have mastery of the boot loader and I was able to configure systems with arbitrarily complex multi-boot environments with a handful of lines of configuration. If there were issues at bootup time that needed fixing, these issues could be corrected with console entries during the bootup. Now, most major distributions have adopted a dumbed-down approach where a complex layer of scripting makes your decisions for you. Unfortunately, that layer is not available at bootup time, so if you have bootup issues, you are on your own. It is supposed to "always work" and sometimes it does. However, if your multi-boot objective is more complex, your case might not be handled (see the numerous bug reports filed with the distros) and your only recourse is to try to reverse engineer the overly complex underlying infrastructure. We've lost the simplicity and utility that we once had in our boot loader, and instead we now have a dumbed-down offering where the software makes the "right" choices for us (mostly). - Microsoft has chosen to give us the ultimate extreme example of Dumbing-down with Windows 8. I've personally never used that OS, but I have walked by some Win8 UI's at computer stores and, correct me if I got this wrong, but the whole UI is now boiled down to a screen full of big block pictures, and $diety forbid that you should be capable of using a mouse, now you can point to a big block picture with your finger. I don't know about you, but I would be insulted if I were told that my computer skills were reduced to that level. By the way, Ridcully, I enjoyed reading your excellent article series, and I feel the pain you expressed as a high-functioning computer user in a Dumbed-down world. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 18, 2014 10:38 AM EDT |
When so many people complained for so long that Linux based systems were "hard to use", it's no surprise that things are "dumbed down" to make them more marketable to the vast hordes of unwashed. This is a mistake, of course, because people generally don't like being talked down to. I recommend as an alternative, a usable default. For example, the lead-in screens for TDE (KDE3) on first log-in, asks multiple times "how do you want this to look" before finally getting to the desktop. This appeals to power users, and people who already know what they like. To the average user, it's confusing because they have no context. Microsoft followed the pack and delivered "themes" because people liked that. With Win8, they violated their previous experience and gave everyone the Fisher Price interface, which is insulting. So here's my suggestion: A _relatively_ simple default, multiple "themes" so the new user can see what kind of customization is possible, and then the "everything and the kitchen sink" available for those that want it. ...but then, that's what KDE and GNOME used to be, isn't it? |
| mbaehrlxer Feb 18, 2014 11:04 AM EDT |
this may be ironic, but as a commandline user i have no problem with the dumbing down of the gui. on the contrary i think i i even like it because i find a complex commandline much easier to master than a complex gui. (the commandline has a history feature where i can search to find complex commands that i did before. if a command gets very complex i can save it in a script and repeat it easily. try that with a gui, any gui.) as a result i use a gui only for things that require one, like image editing, photo archival etc. i use gimp with a complex gui for example, or inkscape. also the developer tools in webbrowsers. but when it came to kde i found that all those features the kde 3 desktop had at the time just got in my way. i'd accidentally click somewhere that would hide a toolbar or panel i was using and than i'd have to figure out what happened and how to fix it. firefox used to have the same problem with buttons to easily hide toolbars. this was a big problem for my mother and my grandmother. so i can see both sides of the issue. there is an argument to be made for each side. i'd also consider that the developers don't feel the pain. as a developer i can set the defaults to my liking so that i don't need any customization for the application i am developing. greetings, eMBee. |
| jdixon Feb 18, 2014 11:28 AM EDT |
> if a command gets very complex i can save it in a script and repeat it easily. try that with a gui, any gui. There used to be a utility for Windows that would do exactly that. It would capture you screen actions, mouse clicks, etc,, and record them to be duplicated later. |
| notbob Feb 18, 2014 12:16 PM EDT |
prolly macro recording. Lotta individual programs include such a function. |
| tuxchick Feb 18, 2014 12:33 PM EDT |
The nice thing about a GUI is you can poke around and discover functionality. This mitigates the weakness of the CLI, where most of them still have not grasped the notion of good documentation, so there is a steep learning curve in simply hunting down information on how to do things, and what you can do. That is the wrong kind of learning curve. But, even after decades of GUIs, they still have not developed an understanding of useful basic concepts. Like doing more than one thing at a time. For example, the main application menu in most desktop environments disappears after you hunt through the dang thing to find the app you want to launch, and then launch it. Well hello, on my fancy 21st century super-duper multi-user multi-tasking Linux system I like to run multiple apps at the same time. Or configuration dialogues with multiple options that disappear after you click one thing. Web apps are the leaders in noxious one-thing-at-a-time dialogs. Click, wait, click, wait, click, wait.... Another chronic weakness of GUIs is no consistent undo, like eMBee mentioned. If something goes haywire there should be an obvious "oops go back" button. KDE and GNOME are huge offenders in this regard. Oh let's face it, GNOME is a huge offender. KDE has lots of right-click context menus and tons of functionality, and a lot of reset buttons, but the overall flow is inconsistent and you spend way too much time trying to find things. My biggest gripe is Porthole GUIs. WTF is it with devs who think we don't need to see nice browsable lists of options, but rather have to click through multiple levels with one or two items per level? They're like fussy little file clerks who have papers so hyper-organized that no file folder has more than a couple of items in it. I know that UI is hard, but it seems that bad habits are adopted with ease while sensible ones never see the light of day. |
| rnturn Feb 18, 2014 2:24 PM EDT |
Quoting:Or configuration dialogues with multiple options that disappear after you click one thing. Web apps are the leaders in noxious one-thing-at-a-time dialogs. Click, wait, click, wait, click, wait.... Must have picked up that practice from the people who write the menus on DVDs. It's annoying enough when starting to watch a movie but at least I may only have to reload an option menu once and then never again for 90 minutes or so. It's completely obnoxious to have to go through that exercise on a computer interface multiple time. Quoting:My biggest gripe is Porthole GUIs. WTF is it with devs who think we don't need to see nice browsable lists of options, but rather have to click through multiple levels with one or two items per level? Ah... my "favorite"? Giving the user dozens (even hundreds) of options that they have to navigate through by scrolling and only able to see 2-3 at a time ensuring that they'll scroll by so fast that it takes you far, far longer than it should take you to make a selection. Or my all-time favorite: making you select a month from a list but only displaying 11. Really? Screen real estate was such that you could only display Jan-Nov? And... no... in neither case are you allowed to manually type in the selection. You must select from the menu. Don't get me started about user interfaces that insist on using a non-configurable font that's too tiny to comfortably read by anyone with less than 20:10 vision or the current fad of medium gray text on a brilliant white background. At least KDE lets me change those things. Web pages are another matter. Making unvisited and visited links the same color or the gray-on-white text are my personal favorites. Override many web site's colors and you often lose the ability to easily navigate areas of some of the web site. Genius. Somewhere there are former "human factors" scientists spinning in their graves in response to the poor usability of many "modern" computer interfaces. |
| skelband Feb 18, 2014 4:13 PM EDT |
> 2. always works (meaning the user is not considered qualified to administer a system, the software must try to anticipate all cases) Personally, I do not consider the "always works" classification as dumbing down. One of the things I like about professionally produced code is that it starts off in a working state. You can go from there much more easily from a position of little knowledge and pick up what you need on the way. For a positive example of this, see package management on most of the good distributions. It never fails to amaze me the shenanigans that Windows users have to go through to get software onto their machines. For my Mint, if it is in a repo, then a single CLI command will suffice. Failing that, is a deb file is available, it is hardly more effort. And the package installs a complete and running application ready for use. Despite what some say, most builds from source are failrly straight forward, but it is generally not my preference, if for no other reason that updates are automatically forthcoming. However, looking at a system like MySQL. Sure the server and client tools install from a package, but look around at the number of Getting Started tutorials on how to even access it, to get it available over a network, sorting out permissions, just to get to the point of being able to create a database locally and adding a table to it. It beggars belief that these fundamental usability issues are still here for a key piece of open source software. That there are *so* many people on forums asking the *same* questions indicates that there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. Writing a database well is hard. Installing it in an immediately usable state is not. |
| number6x Feb 18, 2014 6:50 PM EDT |
Some times I whittle the future |
| notbob Feb 18, 2014 9:07 PM EDT |
> most of them still have not grasped the notion of good documentation, So true! While I'm primarily a CLI guy, I'll freely admit it took me years to get the drift of man pages. Even today, they still pretty much suck. I jes ran across one that had a lot of command options, but never lableled them as such. I'm thinking, are these the options of which it refers? Or?..... Seems like it's not until some really savvy blogger throws up a howto on a specific command do newbs finally understand how that command is used. Fortunately, there are now a lot of intermediate Linux users who really do want share the wealth and educate less than clueful newbs. |
| Scott_Ruecker Feb 20, 2014 2:28 AM EDT |
Tony's research and how he was able to explain what it is that is going on so even the layman such as myself understand are amazing. These two articles together are a treatise into what could be done better by the KDE team, by any team. There is no reason why any user should have to go through what he did to get something rather simple to work the way he wants it too..call me crazy but it shouldn't be that hard. I posted this in the other thread related to this article. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!