Is KDE really usable?

[Vladislav Blanton]

Well put, Kimmo S. Thank you for you thought out response.

Konqueror's hard-to-replicate crashes shouldn't be the issue at hand, but
rather a re-thinking of how Konqueror(/KDE) will better serve the users. I
am aware that there have been many topics and posting on this topic and it
is a goal for KDE4 to be more "usable" and sport a holistic and employed
HIG. Personally, I am excited that these type of discussions have now been
commonplace in the kde mailing lists. Hurrah!

Vlad


On 10/24/06, Kimmo Sundqvist <kimmo.sundqvist at mbnet.fi> wrote:
>
> On Monday 23 October 2006 00:43, Lex Hider wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the feed back. The most appropriate action to take is to file
> > bugs for the problems that you find with KDE.
>
> My two cents on this.
>
> The name of this mailing list has a some kind of holistic ring to it. "If
> there is something wrong or odd in the whole KDE, on the overall KDE
> experience, but you can't put your finger on it exactly, then this is the
> list to discuss things out and find names for problems."
>
> The reusable component architecture in KDE is really considered one of its
> strongest selling points. It has to do with power, meaning what the users
> are
> able to do with it. But it is also easy to forget the user experience in
> all
> those possibilities.
>
> I recently used OS X for a couple of minutes. Compared to Kubuntu, what I
> felt
> using it was the level of integration. OS X Finder feels like one well
> thought out piece. It feels powerful because everything is easily
> accessible,
> and the user feels that he can try things out and not do anything damaging
> or
> end up in a situation where it is hard to get back.
>
> Rule: the user should be encouraged to try things out.
>
> Rule: whatever user is encouraged to try, he should easily be able to get
> back
> to the exact previous state he was in.
>
> Rule: the things to try out should be easy to classify, compare and place
> into
> a wider context.
>
> Rule: the user should be able to easily enough grasp the limits of his
> possibilities. And he should be able to easily see the possibilities.
>
> It does not matter how much more powerful KDE (konqueror) is under the
> hood.
> It makes me feel helpless, and I use it only when I must to. Having used
> OS X
> only that one single time, and only those ten minutes, it immediately felt
> like I had the thing in my hands, and I could easily find my way around.
>
> KDE is integrated, technically. But user-experience-wise, it is not.
> Neither
> is Gnome. I only use Gnome on my day to day system because it has the
> feeling
> that it gets less in my way. It has less of a personality than KDE. I can
> use
> it if I have to, and so could I use KDE, but Gnome is easier to forget
> when
> you don't want to be aware of it.
>
> Do not say "KDE can do thing x" or "Gnome can do thing y" or "OS X can do
> thing z." Say instead, "desktop a feels easier than desktop b, but desktop
> c
> feels like it is a seamless extension of my thoughts, whereas a and b are
> only different levels of difficulty."
>
> UI design and "putting interesting pieces together" are opposites.
> Evolution
> and design are also opposites. Like the linux kernel, all open source
> software "evolves" in a way that it is being designed bit by bit, and then
> these pieces of design are "evolved", i.e. thrown together.
>
> When the said open source project has "evolved" too much or too far, it is
> time for a rewrite, and that really, emphatically means, redesigning it.
> Qt4
> is, in essence, a redesign of qt3. GTK2 is, in essence, a redesign of
> GTK1.
> Linux kernel 2.x is a redesign of kernel 1.x and I could go on forever.
>
> I'm not saying anything else than that we should all acknowledge the
> meaning
> of design. And that, by saying that "linux has not been designed, linux
> has
> evolved", Torvalds was at least half wrong.
>
> Imagine what Finder would look like with NFS and CIFS and whatever
> connectivity included. Imagine, what would be same, what would be
> different,
> compared to Konqueror? I expect musings on this, as I still think this is
> the "holistic" all around feel and experience mailing list.
>
> If this is not, then please, do find (start) one. An open source feel and
> experience GUI thinktank mailing list. And rename this list to
> kde-dev-beginner if it really means that.
>
> I am sorry if I offend someone with this, though that would only prove
> that
> the someone was not listening to me.
>
> -Kimmo S.
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>



-- 
=     Vladislav Blanton      =
  =  vblanton at gmail.com  =
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