Who would have thought anyone could not know how to use a paper clip?
Some students I teach did not. Elementary school students, eight, nine years old. They had never used paper clips before and didn’t know how they worked. Some of them attached the clip as in the picture.
Do you remember not knowing how to use a paper clip? I do not. It just seems self-evident. What could be more intuitive? The volume knob on a stereo? The stapler? Sandals? Anyhow, some of these children did not know how to use the paper clip. For them the paper clip was not intuitive. Maybe because it was not familiar.
I think it is fairly obvious that the same holds true for user interfaces for computers. If you have never used MS Windows, OS X, or KDE, they are probably all equally difficult to use. Once you get used to one of them, however, that one seems easier, more intuitive
, or more user friendly
to you, when you try to use one of the others.
There was a comment on slashdot the other day that perfectly summed up how this affects the popularity of other user interfaces. Basically the comment was that MS’s real killer feature is that it is already used by 90% of all personal computer users.
The popularity of MS Windows has nothing to do with the quality of MS Windows or its intuitiveness. It might be very user-friendly but even if it isn’t, it is widely-used because it is widely-used. MS Windows is familiar to most computer users. Of course, this is (basically) the very network effect that was brought up during the Microsoft anti-trust trial.
Another commonly cited example of the network effect is the qwerty keyboard layout. Qwerty is well known for being sub-optimal yet continues in wide use despite the availability of several better
keyboard layouts.
I use a dvorak keyboard at home and cannot say whether I am faster with it or not. What I can say is that my fingers move less, much less, and I have not had wrist or arm pain at all since switching a couple of years ago. I think it is uncontroversial to say that the dvorak layout is better
— ergonomically at least — than the qwerty layout.
Linux with KDE is a lot like the dvorak keyboard layout — it is arguably better and certainly no worse but not the “standard” so few people use it. The network effect keeps KDE from becoming popular, not the opposition.-1- If KDE had gained widespread popularity first and become the standard, the situation would be reversed and MS Windows might not be able to displace it. What advantage would MS offer over the standard?-2-
Let me repeat that: if the situations were reversed and Linux/KDE had 90% of the PC market, what compelling feature would MS Windows offer? Who would switch to it? The answer to those questions is, of course, doesn’t matter
and very few
. Doesn’t matter
because it would be fighting the network effect, just like Linux/KDE is today, and very few
for the same reason.
Anyhow, I am pondering intuitiveness
and familiarity
because I promised my next article would be about the other apps that come with KDE and WinXP but it isn’t going well. The reason, you may have guessed, is familiarity
.
(My previous article was a comparison of KDE’s file manager Konqueror and that of WinXP, Explorer. Please take a look if you haven’t already.)
WinXP doesn’t come with that many programs. Those that are available and worth talking about — like Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express — I rarely use. I am much more familiar with the corresponding KDE apps. I use KMail everyday but never use Outlook or Outlook Express. Same with amaroK and Windows Media Player. For me, amaroK is the definition of easy to use
and intuitive
(not to mention feature-rich
and killer app
, but that is another article).
It isn’t fair to compare an app you use everyday to one that you have used for a total of five minutes in the last 6 months. So I will refrain from pointing out all the things I don’t like about MSIE and MS Windows Media Player since I am not familiar enough with them to be fair.
What I am going to do instead is focus on some of the other great programs available for KDE and let the people familiar with the MS Windows software make up their own minds. My new next article will be about amaroK, I think.
Let me finish this post with one more thought on familiarity and the network effect. If I understand the situation correctly, KDE 4 will run on MS Windows as well as Linux, the BSD’s, and Mac OS X. This will be very interesting, I think. We have already seen what happens when high quality FOSS apps run on MS Windows. Mozilla Firefox has taken more than 10% of the web browser market (though it varies considerably from country to country) from MSIE. And it has forced MS to spend time and money developing MSIE again.
OpenOffice.org has not yet had that kind of success, but it is not languishing in obscurity either. At the least, it has given businesses some leverage with MS and perhaps raised awareness that alternatives do exist. OpenOffice’s future looks bright, in my opinion.
I cannot wait to see what happens when best-of-class KDE apps like amaroK become available to users of MS Windows. Personally I think that particular app will kill off every other music app aside from Windows Media Player and iTunes. Like Mozilla Firefox, it will also keep a lit fire under both MS’s and Apple’s feet, forcing them to keep developing and improving or risk losing market share.
So what happens when / if many people get used to KDE apps that run just as well (or better) under Linux as under MS Windows? Well, I think those will be interesting times. Of the Chinese-proverb type for MS, especially. The network effect may not not protect them forever.
Thank you for reading. If you have any thoughts, complaints, or corrections on this article, please leave a comment below.
Footnotes
1. A corollary to this is that Linux/KDE will be around a long time. As long as they can still get their work done with it, then just as with the dvorak keyboard, there will always be people who know the difference and who choose to use Linux/KDE.
2. I don’t know what effect “openness” would have on the situation though. Without proprietary lock-in, KDE and other FOSS software might not maintain as large a lead over rivals as proprietary software currently manage to keep.
Darius | 11-Feb-07 at 8:35 pm | Permalink
Interesting, although not original points. It is well know among those who had anything to do with education, or simply observe the world around – one of the biggest problems is not so much learning new things, but rather “unlearning” the old ones.
My 17 year old daughter who has been a Linux user for the last 8 years finds WindowsXP confusing and hardly usable. This is one of the two reasons she is sticking to Linux. The other reason is security.
Darius | 11-Feb-07 at 8:45 pm | Permalink
I’m sure this is an interesting article, but I refuse to read white text on a black background. What is this, 1990?
Osugi Sakae | 11-Feb-07 at 9:15 pm | Permalink
Darius, I agree and admit – not original points but I think the children’s paper clip anecdote makes the points about as clear and concrete as you can get.
BTW, I suspect that comment #2 is not by Darius but from someone who failed to put in their name. Darius, if this is the case, let me know and I’ll change the name on the second post.
Osugi Sakae | 11-Feb-07 at 9:18 pm | Permalink
Surely I am not the one who finds white-on-black easier to read? Actually, I prefer green-on-black, but obviously that combo is an accessibility nightmare for some people.
Daniel Aleksandersen | 12-Feb-07 at 2:46 am | Permalink
Haha, I just laugh to hard of how they had attached the paper clips! ^^ It just looks so wrong! Surely they must have understood that they had not attached it correctly!?
Ashton | 12-Feb-07 at 5:18 am | Permalink
I find white on black very soothing. Especially since there’s a light bulb behind your screen, and with black on white, you’re basically staring at that light bulb. Black on white is considerably easier on my eyes. Good article too.
Pafnoutios | 12-Feb-07 at 9:02 am | Permalink
Using a paper clip like that is very similar to the way a hair (bobby) pin is used.
PS. I use the Dvorak layout, too.
John Fabiani | 12-Feb-07 at 9:39 am | Permalink
I did not find Amarok easy to use. I can recall spending sometime attempting to figure out how to play more than one song at a time. I don’t normally use amarok on a daily bases and can say I often forget the user interface.
anonymous coward | 12-Feb-07 at 10:45 am | Permalink
Wonderful article. (Sorry I can’t use my name)
I absolutely love the paperclip – it really gets the point across better than anything else I’ve ever read.
As someone who has white-on-black, green-on-black and orange-on-black on his 3 websites, I find it a lot easier to read than black-on-white or (shudder) black-on-random-tiled-picture.
Randomie. | 12-Feb-07 at 5:05 pm | Permalink
What’s wrong with 1990?!
And I liked the article.. it does make good points.
I agree though, it is easier on your eyes.
chiron | 12-Feb-07 at 5:29 pm | Permalink
Actually, I *do* remember a time when I didn’t know how to use a paper clip. It was a mystery to me.
I haven’t really seen where XP and KDE are so vastly different. I don’t find it difficult to use KDE. It has your basic GUI concepts, menus, selection, drag and drop, etc. They work much the same, in my opinion. True – KDE gives you a whole lot more options, but if you don’t care (or don’t know) about them, you can get along quite nicely using the defaults.
I like a black background with lighter text. I find this more restful on my eyes. The garish brightness of screens with white backgrounds begins to hurt after a while. A printed page relies on reflected light, which is much gentler. A computer screen generates its own light, which these days can be quite bright – much brighter than a similar printed page. This cause strain for me after many hours.
Like you, I prefer green on black – that’s how I set up my terminal emulator in KDE…
-C
Stomfi | 12-Feb-07 at 7:09 pm | Permalink
The 1974 designed WIMP interface was supposed to be cognitive. i.e. able to be learnt, not neccessarily intuitive.
With the power available in modern CPUs, GPUs and DSPs and their interfaces, it is about time that we had a modern interface that can read, listen, talk, see and recognise in a manner that fits in with how we perform the same information communitions in the physical universe.
It has only been MS’s desire to sell us the same ‘74 package over and over, that has hindered the development of a truely intuitive interface.
Now that IBM has given us the Cell chip, we can use our cognitive abilities to program this supercomputing marvel to develop a natural interface and leave the old WIMP paradigm back in the last century where it belongs.