I wanted to take a moment and talk about Linux UX because, let’s face it… it sucks.
Actually, it’s worse than that. Much of Linux’s UX is technically correct and that makes it objectively wrong.
No. I don’t want Linux to be more Windows-like. But I do want the most common Linux desktops to behave in a way that PC-literate folks can wrap their mind around — and do so from minute zero
All he’s really saying is that it is important for things to be easy for people to figure out how to do, and for that you need to be aware of what mental models they already have and design interfaces with the goal that the largest number of users can succeed in using the software. A better analogy might be that if you’re trying to run a political campaign, you should probably be speaking the language the majority of voters speak, and caring whether they understand you.
The examples the article gives seem like good ones. The starting point is a video of people new to linux trying to use software and failing to figure it out, acknowledging that as a problem to be solved. The proposed solutions are basically to have wizard guis that can walk users through the most common tasks for disk management and network drives. Usability matters and none of that should be very controversial.
The problem with that philosophy is that all the fundamental problems reinforce themselves, generation after generation after generation. Assuming familiarity with Windows as your baseline guarantees that you will be stuck in a rut of horrible UI design “because that’s the way it’s always been”. The lowest-friction choice will always be to carry forward all the bullshit.
I don’t think you can truly call someone “computer literate” if they can’t tolerate moderate friction and learn new things quickly.
This is also why apple’s UI sucks so bad now. They used to have fantastic UI design because they made software with the fewest possible assumptions about the user. Now they design software assuming you are ass-deep in their previous software. It is the design equivalent of inbreeding.
Are the specific suggestions made in the article “horrible UI design”? IMO it is good UI design to have a basic goal of people being able to use it without consulting with external resources, and not requiring them to know much more than is strictly necessary for the given task. The real fundamental problem is the marketshare of proprietary operating systems, not using them needs to be accessible, not a badge of computer literacy. The author is absolutely right that you should be able to format a disk and set up a network drive by just clicking through and selecting basic options about what you are trying to do.
The specific examples seem reasonable, but do not support the overall thesis.
If you had a video of people new to Windows you’d find the same issues or worse.
My wife was struggling so badly to run her windows laptop (she was used to a cellphone only), partly because windows does quirky things we just get used to when running Windows; so we swapped the OS to linux and she’s much happier, its the same everyday and doesn’t get in her way.