Not Your Fault
Walt Mossberg wrote his last planned column. Mossberg is known for his 1991 observation that “Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it isn’t your fault.” In his final planned column he wrote, “Personal technology is usually pretty easy to use, and, if it’s not, it’s not your fault.”
Free and open source has matured and evolved dramatically the past several years. Yet Linux (and BSD) based systems pretty much remain the domain of geeks.
Read almost any related online tutorial and notice the emphasis on using the terminal. Smart phone and tablet users would laugh at any such expectation.
Desktop developers often do not provide that last bit of polish.
Most people just want to use their computer based devices. Nothing more, nothing less. They are not interested in becoming geeks.
Usability is acceptable among the geeks (works for me!) but non technical users use a different barometer to measure usability. Most non technical users do not use a Linux based system. And that is not their fault.
Posted: Category: Usability Tagged: General
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