{"id":792,"date":"2008-08-04T13:33:21","date_gmt":"2008-08-04T12:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/792-its-not-just-free-software-that-has-poor-usability.html"},"modified":"2008-08-04T13:33:21","modified_gmt":"2008-08-04T12:33:21","slug":"its-not-just-free-software-that-has-poor-usability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/792-its-not-just-free-software-that-has-poor-usability.html","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not just free software that has poor usability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Schofield at The Guardian links<\/a> to Matthew Paul Thomas\u2019 post on Why Free Software has poor usability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For most of his points you could drop the free from his title. <\/p>\n

Thomas makes the point about most programmers not being good designers:<\/p>\n

\n

Some programmers are also great designers, but most aren\u2019t. Programming and human interface design are separate skills, and people good at both are rare. So it\u2019s important for software to have dedicated designers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

True; but software can be over-designed too \u2013 I guess this happens more in the commercial world. Sometimes usability is sacrificed for the sake of good looks.<\/p>\n

Mega-budgets don\u2019t always help. How did Office 2007 get through its usability testing, when there is no indication that you have to click on the \u201cOffice button\u201d to access essential features like New, Save As and Print? What about Outlook 2007, with one of the world\u2019s most obscure and difficult UIs? Opening another user\u2019s mailbox \u2013 how many clicks is that, and how would you possibly find it without being told?<\/p>\n

Good code is hard; good design is harder.<\/p>\n

Technorati tags: usability<\/a>, software development<\/a>, design<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Schofield at The Guardian links to Matthew Paul Thomas\u2019 post on Why Free Software has poor usability. For most of his points you could drop the free from his title. Thomas makes the point about most programmers not being good designers: Some programmers are also great designers, but most aren\u2019t. Programming and human interface … Continue reading It\u2019s not just free software that has poor usability<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,79,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-source","category-software","category-software-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}