The command line interface (CLI), for those who are not familiar with it, is the (scary?) thing you see on your computer's screen full of text that is mostly gibberish to the untrained. Those who are familiar with it may argue with me because they are so comfortable with this type of computer interface. Actually, CLI is not bad for the user's experience all the time, but it generally is. As I implied earlier, it requires training (usually a lot of it). Without a manual or any sort of guide, operating it is nearly impossible. To be fair, every type of interface needs some kind of guide to the user, but the ones with the better design require much less education and are usually easy to understand for most people because they do not deviate very much from the conventions of other things that people interact with.
Some of the reasons why some love the CLI are their familiarity with it, the speed of operating with it compared to the graphical user interface (GUI), and the things they can do with it that they can't with the GUI. However, the graphical interface is becoming faster and more feature-rich. Moving, copying, and opening files are among the most popular activities done on the CLI. Applications like Quicksilver (for OS X) and GNOME-Do (for Linux) can execute those commands even faster than on the CLI. Those applications are more ubiquitous than the terminal or an emulator, in most cases. Because of their accessibility and speed of execution of actions (like moving, copying, and opening files), they are more practical for more people than the CLI because of their presentability, learnability, and better User Experience design in general. In Linux, many power users are inclined to manage their software through the CLI. Thanks to Ubuntu, the Software Center serves a great GUI to manage software for new and expert users. It is so fast and smooth that it could be more practical than the CLI even for power users.
Graphical interfaces made by different parties, like CLIs of different platforms, usually have varied conventions, so new users of both kinds of interface will always have to learn new things if they are not limited to one perfectly consistent platform. What makes the GUI better than the CLI is its learnability. Let's face it. CLIs, at least the ones available today, always need manuals and they do much more than most GUIs.
Despite the points I mentioned, there will always be people who will have a good experience with the command line. This may be funny for most people, but some computer experts just love to see things happening in such a geeky way. The CLI is actually positively affective to a special breed of people.
To sum it up, having fast and feature-rich GUIs are much better than CLIs for most people, because of their richer capability of being designed for the human being.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Why I Bother Contributing to Human Experience Design and How I See Its Current State
In 2006, I envisioned having a 'perfectly ergonomic' set of electronic gadgets. Because I cannot very much tweak my hardware, I aimed at the software. My Windows XP setup was working very well then. I had my ideas incubated in OneNote and Microsoft-friendly files. One day, I literally stumbled upon (through StumbleUpon :D) Ubuntu. Researching more about it gave me the impression that it is completely customizeable, is the best Linux distribution, and will change the world. Though my perception of it changed a bit, I still believe that it is completely customizeable, is the best Linux distribution, and will change the world.
Though it would not be the case if I did it with the software available today, switching was a very painful process. Burning the Ubuntu CD image file was already challenging to me. The worst thing is probably accidentally reformating my hard drive, which wiped out all my archived ideas and memories. Because of those problems, I have been advocating making the Linux community newbie friendly. Some even mentioned that if burning an image file is already difficult for a person, using the Linux desktop is not even an option. I never believed in that. My passion for integrating my gadgets to my mind pushed me to learn even if I was challenged. I ranted about people who mention RTFM (read the fscking manual) and "Google is your friend." Some may disagree with me and think that the Linux desktop should be for limited to the inclined, but I tell them this: I am inclined now, and if it was not with the assistance of the dedicated and understanding Ubuntu community, I would not even know how to burn a CD image.
Pushing friendlier communities and better manuals is no longer my main focus now. Technology should work for the human being with little to no assistance from other people or any form of reference. Before, the answer was usability. Now, Canonical (the commercial backer of Ubuntu) and other enlightened people are focusing on User Experience (UX).
Months ago, I bought an iPod Touch to know how it feels to own and use an Apple product. I must say that the experience of using it is very smooth and pleasurable. However, my inclination to side with more open platforms is making me less satisfied with this product. I will expound on this a bit later. When I first touched the Apple mobile device, I knew what to do it. Even my two-year-old niece knew how to play with it a bit. Apple products barely need manuals, while most pieces of Open Source software do.
I believe in Open Source software even if they generally need better design more than some alternatives. Mozilla's products are probably the ones with the best UX design in the world of Open Source. On the other hand, the complete Apple experience is probably the smoothest. Most of the time, I use Ubuntu as my operating system and it runs Open Source applications. The cost of doing things this way includes the problems I mentioned earlier, but they are slowly being resolved now. The biggest problem now is probably the lack of commercial support. Flash and other proprietary formats need to be heavily polished. Also, using some devices with Linux could be from painful to impossible. I cannot watch our SlingBox or sync my iPod Touch with the latest firmware on Ubuntu. Some may mention reverse engineering, but they are often hard to execute if not impossible because mileages vary between different setups.
As for maintaining an Apple lifestyle, the problems are very easy to state. It requires a sustained spending of a good amount of money and it is too closed. The first point is somewhat self-explanatory. Apple products are just too expensive for most of the world. Some may argue that their hardware can be cheaper than their counterparts, but they are still generally expensive. After spending for a piece of Apple hardware, you will be locked up in the platform and be forced to keep on paying good amounts of money to Apple. You can choose to resist, but you will lose the 'Apple experience,' which defeats the purpose, in my opinion.
My suggested solution is to stick with open platforms. We can exclusively live with Linux-based platforms for the operating systems and avoid their proprietary counterparts for us to have a symbiotically related set of electronic gadgets. It would be a pleasurable experience, but there is still so much to learn from Apple and other technology firms.
Proprietary pieces of software generally have smoother design than their Open Source counterparts. My solution is not to live with them because their being closed, among other things, give me a bad User Experience. I choose to live with Open Source and help improve its User Experience design to help make people more satisfied.
Though it would not be the case if I did it with the software available today, switching was a very painful process. Burning the Ubuntu CD image file was already challenging to me. The worst thing is probably accidentally reformating my hard drive, which wiped out all my archived ideas and memories. Because of those problems, I have been advocating making the Linux community newbie friendly. Some even mentioned that if burning an image file is already difficult for a person, using the Linux desktop is not even an option. I never believed in that. My passion for integrating my gadgets to my mind pushed me to learn even if I was challenged. I ranted about people who mention RTFM (read the fscking manual) and "Google is your friend." Some may disagree with me and think that the Linux desktop should be for limited to the inclined, but I tell them this: I am inclined now, and if it was not with the assistance of the dedicated and understanding Ubuntu community, I would not even know how to burn a CD image.
Pushing friendlier communities and better manuals is no longer my main focus now. Technology should work for the human being with little to no assistance from other people or any form of reference. Before, the answer was usability. Now, Canonical (the commercial backer of Ubuntu) and other enlightened people are focusing on User Experience (UX).
Months ago, I bought an iPod Touch to know how it feels to own and use an Apple product. I must say that the experience of using it is very smooth and pleasurable. However, my inclination to side with more open platforms is making me less satisfied with this product. I will expound on this a bit later. When I first touched the Apple mobile device, I knew what to do it. Even my two-year-old niece knew how to play with it a bit. Apple products barely need manuals, while most pieces of Open Source software do.
I believe in Open Source software even if they generally need better design more than some alternatives. Mozilla's products are probably the ones with the best UX design in the world of Open Source. On the other hand, the complete Apple experience is probably the smoothest. Most of the time, I use Ubuntu as my operating system and it runs Open Source applications. The cost of doing things this way includes the problems I mentioned earlier, but they are slowly being resolved now. The biggest problem now is probably the lack of commercial support. Flash and other proprietary formats need to be heavily polished. Also, using some devices with Linux could be from painful to impossible. I cannot watch our SlingBox or sync my iPod Touch with the latest firmware on Ubuntu. Some may mention reverse engineering, but they are often hard to execute if not impossible because mileages vary between different setups.
As for maintaining an Apple lifestyle, the problems are very easy to state. It requires a sustained spending of a good amount of money and it is too closed. The first point is somewhat self-explanatory. Apple products are just too expensive for most of the world. Some may argue that their hardware can be cheaper than their counterparts, but they are still generally expensive. After spending for a piece of Apple hardware, you will be locked up in the platform and be forced to keep on paying good amounts of money to Apple. You can choose to resist, but you will lose the 'Apple experience,' which defeats the purpose, in my opinion.
My suggested solution is to stick with open platforms. We can exclusively live with Linux-based platforms for the operating systems and avoid their proprietary counterparts for us to have a symbiotically related set of electronic gadgets. It would be a pleasurable experience, but there is still so much to learn from Apple and other technology firms.
Proprietary pieces of software generally have smoother design than their Open Source counterparts. My solution is not to live with them because their being closed, among other things, give me a bad User Experience. I choose to live with Open Source and help improve its User Experience design to help make people more satisfied.
Why I Have Not Been Posting Here
When I put this blog up, I had many topics lined up. However, a number of reasons have been stopping me from posting. The first is my ownership of the information I am to post. I am not very familiar with copyrights and other legal factors that are involved in writing. Some of the topics that I have lined up were intended for my competitive advantage when I am already making money out of what I love to do and to be properly cited. I was not willing to just give away some of my potentially expensive ideas. However, it contradicts my open principles. My deeper goal is to make this world a little better by contributing to the repository of human knowledge.
The second issue is related to quality. I do not want to spread unreliable information. Also, I am not familiar with warranties. As much as possible, I would fix the problems caused by the misinformation that I could spread, but I may not have the power to do so every single time. I will just add disclaimers.
I am not very much into writing. The third issue is my lack of confidence in my proficiency in writing scholarly blog entries. I have been tweeting because it does not require a perfect writing style. What made me more confident in publishing weblog entries are some of the dugg entries (on digg.com and similar sources of social news), that are not perfectly written. I realized that content matters more. In this world of amateur media, netizens buy good ideas as long as they understand them.
The last issue that I am to mention is procrastination. I have been telling myself that I am too busy to bother writing. The ironic thing is that I manage to do unimportant things that have no urgency. Yes, though I am currently taking a (hopefully) brief vacation between graduating and having a job, I have more than enough responsibilities to keep me busy. That is no excuse, though. Everyone, including great bloggers out there, are busy with a lot of things.
Now, I'm off to writing my next blog entry.
The second issue is related to quality. I do not want to spread unreliable information. Also, I am not familiar with warranties. As much as possible, I would fix the problems caused by the misinformation that I could spread, but I may not have the power to do so every single time. I will just add disclaimers.
I am not very much into writing. The third issue is my lack of confidence in my proficiency in writing scholarly blog entries. I have been tweeting because it does not require a perfect writing style. What made me more confident in publishing weblog entries are some of the dugg entries (on digg.com and similar sources of social news), that are not perfectly written. I realized that content matters more. In this world of amateur media, netizens buy good ideas as long as they understand them.
The last issue that I am to mention is procrastination. I have been telling myself that I am too busy to bother writing. The ironic thing is that I manage to do unimportant things that have no urgency. Yes, though I am currently taking a (hopefully) brief vacation between graduating and having a job, I have more than enough responsibilities to keep me busy. That is no excuse, though. Everyone, including great bloggers out there, are busy with a lot of things.
Now, I'm off to writing my next blog entry.
Friday, October 16, 2009
First Post!
Hello World!
Okay, that seems to be working. Lemme finish the mic check. There! Game.
You found a small spot in the Intertubes where Allan Caeg's technology User eXperience (UX) thoughts are going to be posted. I put this blog up because of my need to share with the world my ideas about Human Factors and Ergonomics. Earth is too unusable for human beings and it needs a hell lot of polishing. Usability is not the only issue, though. UX lovers are nagging about that topic now, but there is also evolution going on. UX designers have seen that usability is not enough. A good reference would be Human Factors International, which preaches persuasion, emotion, and trust. The development of Human Factors and Ergonomics are phrased in different jargons, but what is important is the goal to make design more suited for the user.
Join me in my journey to shape the world into an environment that provides the best possible experience to its inhabitants!
Okay, that seems to be working. Lemme finish the mic check. There! Game.
You found a small spot in the Intertubes where Allan Caeg's technology User eXperience (UX) thoughts are going to be posted. I put this blog up because of my need to share with the world my ideas about Human Factors and Ergonomics. Earth is too unusable for human beings and it needs a hell lot of polishing. Usability is not the only issue, though. UX lovers are nagging about that topic now, but there is also evolution going on. UX designers have seen that usability is not enough. A good reference would be Human Factors International, which preaches persuasion, emotion, and trust. The development of Human Factors and Ergonomics are phrased in different jargons, but what is important is the goal to make design more suited for the user.
Join me in my journey to shape the world into an environment that provides the best possible experience to its inhabitants!
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