No more right click terminal
Tyler Larson
fedora-devel at tlarson.com
Wed Jul 13 23:27:09 UTC 2005
Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> What's specious the way all those changes are never backed by real user
> studies but by "we think best" and "you're not the user we want"
> arguments. I (and probably others) would not mind it as much if
> simplifier proponents spent their energy explaining with real use-cases
> why their changes are good instead of devoting their energies to
> convince their users they are retards that can not understand what's
> good for them.
>
You hit it on the nose right there. GNOME's past behavior has earned them the
extreme distrust of a very large portion of their users. As such, any move
that further inconveniences the already alienated userbase is met with a
knee-jerk reaction of outrage. It's not just the changes they made; it's the
perceived "shut up, you're stupid" response that the users felt they were met
with when they disagreed.
Many of the decisions that come into question fall into a particular category.
There's two major reasons why an interface might be easy to use: It can be
naturally intuitive, or it can be what you're used to. I could build a clock
where the hands rotate counter-clockwise, and my design may truly even be more
naturally intuitive than the norm. But users will still find it confusing
because they're so used to something that's different.
GNOME's more controversial decisions have been similar to, say, using the
Dvorak keyboard layout by default. You can cite all sorts of studies about how
it's faster and decreases the probability of a repetitive stress injury. You
can even say that QWERTY is still available for the minority who want to use
it. And besides, people who use QWERTY keyboards aren't the target audience
anyway.
The fact remains that sometimes, the "better option" isn't the best decision.
It's a judgment call--there's often good reasoning for either side. But what
frustrates the user is the illogically uncompromising fervor with which the
developers defend their position. It's very... RMS.
I personally think that removing the terminal from the context menu is the
correct thing to do (it should have stayed on the panel with the other
launchers--and it sure as hell better go back). Still, my initial reaction was
mild outrage--it felt like yet another personal attack against me. Another
"you don't belong here" message from GNOME. I certainly understand why others
were angry.
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