[Lumiera] Essential Reading: some generqal thoughts

[Lorenzo]

Dear Joel, all,

Thanks for the link it is very interesting.
I think I agree with most of the points, from a general point of view, 
especially as a 'non-coder' but  avid user of open source software. 
(avid: adjective, not the software!)

I've been more on the "watch and read" on the mailing list up to now. 
The link you sent stimulated several thoughts which I'd like to develop 
here and share: I won't make any definite conclusions though, just throw 
them in the discussion hoping they might be of some use for the debate 
and development.

I think the cited article in its generality doesn't highlight enough two 
important aspects in /usability/ (which tends to be an overused 
'umbrella' term) and overall software design:

1. the software kind itself.
2. the intended audience.

1. quite plain: designing a 'notepad' application is different from 
designing a rocket-control application, and still different from 
designing a patients database application. But where do the requirements 
come from?

2. this should be one of the keys to point 1 (yet it may be broader). 
Because at the end of the day, software is used by people. A 'notepad' 
does text, that's plain (and a video editor does video, the 
rocket-control does rockets etc.): but, will it be used by the 'general' 
user to take down notes at a meeting? or maybe by [put your favourite 
programming language here] coders? multilingual users?
I think choosing the intended audience is crucial and should be clear in 
the 'mind' of the project.

To get a little more into video 'stuff' (intentionally using a non open 
source example here): when Microsoft creates Movie Maker they are 
clearly targeting the general 'make a movie/video slideshow of your 
holidays' user, or maybe the Spielberg-wannabe youtuber. It must be 
clear that this is a neutral consideration, I'm not saying this is a 
'good' or 'bad' choice, simply it is a choice and once it's made I think 
it's also quite binding from the development point of view. This doesn't 
mean that if I'm a professional video editor I might not make use of 
Movie Maker to create a 'quick and dirty' video from some webcam 
shots... but I don't expect to find advanced scripting or support for 
mega-expensive hardware in Movie Maker.
On the other hand many may know Final Cut ships with a more than 350 
pages User's Manual which starts with a thorough hardware-set-up 
sections and ends with an eighteen-pages keyboard short cuts appendix 
(hey, that's the short version, there's also a full 4-volume, more than 
2000 pages version!)

Now to lumiera: who is the main intended audience? To make it short: to 
me it seems that Lumiera, moving from cinelerra, wants to be a 
final-cut/avid/[you favourite professional video editor here] open 
source (linux) alternative. Hurray!
But, one should be cautious: indeed I agree with point 7. of the Thomas 
article: "In the absence of a definite design of their own, many 
developers [but I would add, many users!] assume that whatever Microsoft 
or Apple have done is good design". When I say open source 'alternative' 
that doesn't necessarily mean 'free clone'. In fact I think Hermann has 
expressed some of this in his recent email when he talks about video 
hardware paradigms 'leaking' into video software design.
This chance to create something 'new' should strongly be kept in mind: 
for example the idea that every GUI action should be 'scriptable' sounds 
as a very interesting (and innovative) paradigm.
Of course all of this has to mash-up with (intended!) users' 
expectations ("I would like to be able to do this, this and that...") 
and if a good working model exists why not use it?
Also in (video) editing, which in the end should be a creative activity, 
there is always a /freedom /domain related to personal taste and 
artistic ideas, used material, type of project (where to put audio 
tracks is a good example), which the software should accommodate without 
imposing a strict model as much as possible.

To conclude, I think that much of what I've said is already in the 
ongoing discussion on code 'vs' GUI which is important and should be 
kept lively and open and I hope I provided some stimuli within this 
discussion.

Kind regards,
Lorenzo.



Joel Holdsworth wrote:
> The discussion seems to be going quite furiously right now, so while
> it's going on, can I encourage everyone who hasn't yet done so to read
> this through carefully:
> http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/01/free-software-usability
>
> So of the issue raised are issues for us. I'm particularly trying to dig
> my heels in to defend against the problems from #1, #2, #3, #6, #8, #9,
> #10. Some of the points there are not so relevant to us, and some we're
> weak on and need to improve.
>
> (This second article from the same blog gives a helpful thumbnail
> illustrations of how to understand what usability is all about
> http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/11/usability )
>
>
>
>
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