30 ms·

"That leaves us with the riddle that every software developer faces at some point: how best to make a UI simple enough to be intuitive for a consumer who wants

by ziyadb 13y ago

"That leaves us with the riddle that every software developer faces at some point: how best to make a UI simple enough to be intuitive for a consumer who wants a solid, fast browser that just works, and yet is customizable and extensible so that power users can add the features they want?" You don't. Taking both user groups into consideration and weighing them equally assumes that they have the same bearing on the usage of your product. Once it reaches mass market, the tinkerers (occasionally referred to as the early adopters or evangelists) are no longer the largest nor the most profitable segment of your user-base. Therefore, you can theoretically afford to disregard them--however, in practice, this has implications that can prove disastrous. For instance, they could seek out an alternative and start the disruptive cycle all over again, increasing its appeal and reducing yours, which propagates and ultimately ruins your perception, though this can probably be avoided.

Jare 13y ago
I can't imagine a world where the unsophisticated "consumer who wants a solid, fast browser that just works" doesn't just use the default browser that comes bundled with the OS. Safari and IE are more than capable to fill that role these days.
- fpgeek 13y ago
  Some of those unsophisticated consumers are still using Windows XP (or Android Gingerbread or ...).
  - Jare 13y ago
    To clarify, the theory is that there is a significant market in people who are still using XP, are sophisticated enough to want a 'better' browser, have knowledge and IT permissions to install one, yet at the same time don't want a featured interface. I'm sure there's a few people like that, but a market big enough to model your product around them? I.... I just can't imagine that being the case.
PommeDeTerre 13y ago
GNOME 3 is a perfect, and very recent, example of what you're describing. It was open source programmers who made GNOME 2 and earlier a successful, usable desktop environment. These were very technical users who created software that generally worked well for their purposes, but incidentally also worked well for other, less-technical users, too. Yet at some point, we saw the number of "designers" and "UI experts" start to grow, and eventually overwhelm the number of programmers. The "make it usable by everyone" mantra took over, but without the skill and sensibility we saw from programmers alone. The end result has been GNOME 3. At best, it can be considered one of the worst open source disasters of all time. Its designer-driven development process and subsequent lack of usability and quality has alienated many programmers. These are exactly the kind of people who shouldn't be alienated, because they did things right in the first place. Aside from a few odd cases here and there, GNOME 3 is generally hated by anyone who uses his or her computer to do real work. And what you say about seeking alternatives, or even creating them, is very true. KDE and Xfce benefited immensely from the GNOME 3 debacle, accepting many of the talented and valuable GNOME "refugees". MATE and Cinnamon have been born to try to fix the problem, as well. GNOME 3 isn't the only example. Firefox is another good example, and obviously quite relevant to Opera. It has been systematically dumbed-down basically every release starting with Firefox 4, which has rendered it far less useful than it once was, causing many advanced users to abandon it. Opera does indeed appear to be following this same path, unfortunately. Opera 15 has the same feeling that GNOME 3 does, in that it is a regression from the previous versions. Discarding so many things that make Opera 12 and earlier such a great browser just isn't a good way forward.
- cuu508 13y ago
  > GNOME 3 is a perfect, and very recent, example of what you're describing. Agree, in a sense that it has abandoned tinkerers and focused on mainstream users. I'm not sure the result is disastrous, though. In Google Trends GNOME has maintained its position relative to KDE: https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=gnome+kde#q=gnome%2C%20%20kde%2C%20%20xfce&cmpt=q https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=gnome+kde#q=gnome%2C... If you have more relevant stats, please share!
  - 13y ago

by ziyadb 13y ago

Jare 13y ago

I can't imagine a world where the unsophisticated "consumer who wants a solid, fast browser that just works" doesn't just use the default browser that comes bundled with the OS. Safari and IE are more than capable to fill that role these days.

fpgeek 13y ago
Some of those unsophisticated consumers are still using Windows XP (or Android Gingerbread or ...).
- Jare 13y ago
  To clarify, the theory is that there is a significant market in people who are still using XP, are sophisticated enough to want a 'better' browser, have knowledge and IT permissions to install one, yet at the same time don't want a featured interface. I'm sure there's a few people like that, but a market big enough to model your product around them? I.... I just can't imagine that being the case.

PommeDeTerre 13y ago

GNOME 3 is a perfect, and very recent, example of what you're describing. It was open source programmers who made GNOME 2 and earlier a successful, usable desktop environment. These were very technical users who created software that generally worked well for their purposes, but incidentally also worked well for other, less-technical users, too. Yet at some point, we saw the number of "designers" and "UI experts" start to grow, and eventually overwhelm the number of programmers. The "make it usable by everyone" mantra took over, but without the skill and sensibility we saw from programmers alone. The end result has been GNOME 3. At best, it can be considered one of the worst open source disasters of all time. Its designer-driven development process and subsequent lack of usability and quality has alienated many programmers. These are exactly the kind of people who shouldn't be alienated, because they did things right in the first place. Aside from a few odd cases here and there, GNOME 3 is generally hated by anyone who uses his or her computer to do real work. And what you say about seeking alternatives, or even creating them, is very true. KDE and Xfce benefited immensely from the GNOME 3 debacle, accepting many of the talented and valuable GNOME "refugees". MATE and Cinnamon have been born to try to fix the problem, as well. GNOME 3 isn't the only example. Firefox is another good example, and obviously quite relevant to Opera. It has been systematically dumbed-down basically every release starting with Firefox 4, which has rendered it far less useful than it once was, causing many advanced users to abandon it. Opera does indeed appear to be following this same path, unfortunately. Opera 15 has the same feeling that GNOME 3 does, in that it is a regression from the previous versions. Discarding so many things that make Opera 12 and earlier such a great browser just isn't a good way forward.

cuu508 13y ago
> GNOME 3 is a perfect, and very recent, example of what you're describing. Agree, in a sense that it has abandoned tinkerers and focused on mainstream users. I'm not sure the result is disastrous, though. In Google Trends GNOME has maintained its position relative to KDE: https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=gnome+kde#q=gnome%2C%20%20kde%2C%20%20xfce&cmpt=q https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=gnome+kde#q=gnome%2C... If you have more relevant stats, please share!
- 13y ago